Eat Our Hearts Alive
by lotuskasumi
Summary: "When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it." - Caitlyn Siehl. A non-linear love story about the Impossible Girl and Dark Lord of Downing Street told through snippets of their days and memories. (Malcolm x Clara. Real world AU [for Clara, anyway]). Rated M for language and sensual or outright sexual content.
1. The Bad Day

**Notes: **This fic started off as something else (and is being posted on AO3 as that). However, I noticed a few people saying they could read it as a Malcolm/Clara fic and I decided - hey, why not rework it to be that? If you want to see what it's like in its original form, it's up on AO3 under the same name. The only difference here are certain pronouns, changed details in the prose, and backstory expansion. Enjoy~

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><p><strong>The Bad Day<strong>

This day won't be easy, if only because the past few days have been progressively worse than the standard fare and Clara has long since learned how to tell the signs of walking a tightrope bound to snap. It helps that Malcolm's not the sort to keep such hints from her, not when they're safe and together at home. Their house is a sanctuary – her presence, her patience, a confessional. How often do these days make him kneel and whisper horrors and fears, ire and spite? More than enough, far, far too more. He might drop dead at any second, given the current merciful state of Providence, so he may as well shuffle off this mortal coil with his conscience clear.

"Well, not _clear,_" Malcolm specified when he told her the joke, not really smiling but it was not quite a sneer either. Clara, for her part, was imitating stone. "But one of those colour's that just one swatch above on the palette list of undiluted shit."

Clara could recognize the pain in every biting word spoken. She recognized it as one who had to utter a few herself but kept most of them to herself, seething and simmering in sour silence. So when the bad day rears its head, breaking from the surface of a dark, dreamless sea of sleep, Clara cannot feign surprise. She expected this. She had _time _to expect it, time and the sort of experience from which lessons are learned and damage inflicted. It was also a natural progression of the world, at least in the way it worked for her and him.

_It was about time for our luck to run out, _she thought as she fell to sleep in his arms the night before. It was the first thought she had upon waking as well._ That's just the kind of life we have – but at least we _are_ together. Has to count for something._

Mornings technically arrived before the sun did, when the sky outside was still a granite frozen clump showing the eternal promise of rain. The alarm shrieked like a siren howling from the bottom of every hollow barrel lung. Iron cold and merciless. That's what mornings were for her and him, separately, distinctly, with their own respective paths to follow: her to Coal Hill, him to Downing. Mornings were traps from which they painstakingly escaped only to end up back where they began: together, in spirit if not in person, and sometimes together in bed. But at least neither of them were alone anymore. Both Clara and Malcolm think on this quite a bit, are grateful for it even if they so seldom say. It still mattered, it still helped.

The alarm's howl filled the room. Not the best way to wake up, all things considered. Jarred awake, a few details registered to Clara at once. The blanket had bunched up enough so that one of her legs was bare and cold, dangling off the edge of her side of the bed. Her spot was closest to the windows that overlooked the napkin-sized green square of a backyard, a little scrap of nature in which she was always promising to start a garden. The most work she'd done was dig little memorials for pets in days past, and take her chance on a patch of rosemary. Ophelia said it was for remembrance, but as a little girl Clara had always thought of them as faerie-sized Christmas trees. She'd turn their branches into wedding garlands for her dolls before tearing apart the little bristles as she'd seen her father do in the kitchen while making certain suppers. She'd crush them inside her tender fists so that the smell could seep into her skin, like the soap her mother would use to attack the fine layer of dirt and dust that always seemed to grow on Clara's hands in those days.

Clara didn't do anything with the rosemary now. Malcolm found more use for it than she ever did.

The intruding lights from the sky outside weren't quite bright enough to be blinding, but Clara reckoned that was because of the curtains. They were drawn shut tight even here on the upper floor. In contrast with the cold shock running up her bare leg, the rest of Clara was warm, weighted – her arms were leaden, but comfortably occupied. There was a weight on her chest right over the steady ticking of her heart, as if she were being lovingly pressed to death. She looked down, not needing an answer, but wanting it all the same.

Of course Malcolm was there. Of course. But as comforting as this was to know and to feel, the shock of it stopped Clara cold.

_He can't stay that way. He'll have to move. He'll have to leave soon._ _And really, _Clara added, _he should be up by now anyway_ – _and me as well_. Though there was little Clara could do to ease the toil that was his life and work, and though she could only just barely maintain the line when the two became dreadfully blurred, like an infection spreading to a full-on outbreak, at the very least she could be _there_ for as long as their respective work schedules allowed. She would be there until the front door opened by his hand, until his back was turned – until he left, though not for good.

Clara had developed a saying in the early stages of their life together. _The man who leaves is not the same man who prepares to leave._ Malcolm knew this as well as Clara, for far longer than her, but knowing what caused a wound never stopped the wound from hurting any less.

This thought made her freeze again, but it helped just a little to hold him tighter. It helped to feel Malcolm pull her closer in his sleep, an instinctive reaction that brought forth an immediate, warm smile. There was a strange short of charm to this kind of vulnerability, although Malcolm would laugh should Clara ever mention it – so of course she planned mention it once he was awake.

_Better get on that, then. _"Malcolm," Clara said, her lips moving against his hair. His name was accompanied by a short, tight hug, her arms pressing tight. "Malcolm, wake up."

"Fucking was already," he muttered at once, his words slurred against her neck. His breath and lips tickled the edge of Clara's skin, as did the brief kiss he plants there instead. He shifted against her, pulling her into a hug even tighter than the one she gave to him, though one of his arms was trapped under her back, pinned in place. "Had to wait for you, didn't I?"

"No you didn't," Clara said at once, breezily, dismissive, but tender all the same. She gave the side of Malcolm's forehead a quick fleeting kiss as she continued to brush her fingers through his hair. "But hey, thanks. I appreciate it."

After a pause for thoughts to settle in, Malcolm pulled back, moving fast from under the tangle of blankets and sheets, taking some with him as he stretched. He swore, muttered, and shoved them into a snarl towards the end of the bed.

The cold moved over Clara in a quick snap. It was like drowning. She shivered, sat up, and asked, "Hand me my cardigan?"

Malcolm turned and snatched it off the back of the desk chair from where she'd deposited it last night, but when he handed it to her the gesture was done in a steady, slower measure. She wanted to call it gentle, but that didn't feel right. The word never quite fit him, and it never should. He was too raw, too unrestrained, too... _him. _There was something to love about it all the same.

"Coffee, yeah?" he asked as Clara slid her arms through the sleeves, folding the cardigan shut to seal the warmth inside. She tried not to think about how cold it was in bed without him, or that he was likely thinking the same thing standing where he was without her.

"Coffee'd be nice, thanks," she said, shifting towards his side of the bed and stepping down.

Malcolm considered her with a cutting, curious side-eye before he walked off at an almost stomp from the bedroom to the stairs. She followed behind, yawning into the wrist-cuff of her sleeve. Neither of them were anything close to morning people, but whereas Malcolm simply had to snap awake with very little lapse between drowsiness and his brain firing on all strained cylinders, foul-mouthed and with vaguely sour temper ever present, Clara at least _attempted_ a far more relaxed approach to waking up. Talking to him helped them both. In waking up, in preparing to face the day. The more he grumbled the more she smiled, spoke softly, and took the sting out of his sharp tongue with a cleverly timed word. And Malcolm didn't mind. Clara knew he doesn't. He even said he loved that about her once, but only once, with the same air he admitted anything sincere and kind: Voice low and eyes focused, his attention riveted in the way that can still steal her breath still, now – always.

Clara thought about this as she followed him down the stairs, surprised and pleased about the impact he had on her, compared and so sharply contrasted to nearly everyone else he knew in any sort of daily conversational capacity. It was a kind of joke without a punchline, a game with no end in sight. Malcolm took the breath from others out of fear or a kind of reeling, incredulous doubt, and yet he stole hers with sweetness.

Clara scowled. _Not the word I want, _she thought, shaking her head, her hair shifting against her back. _So... So not the word I want. _And yet it still somehow fit, contrary to his nature though it was.

But Clara's idea of sweetness had changed considerably from when she was younger. Sweetness to her now was the effort someone made in making another person smile - the effort alone wasn't enough, but the level of care, the urgency, the cleverness involved was important, too. Sometimes the stories Malcolm brought back about work and those he tolerated there could make her smile, or even laugh if he phrased the telling just right ("Well, I _say _tolerate, but it's no fucking different from the way you tolerate a cancer taking root in either lung, yeah?"). They only made her laugh when they weren't reminding her of something else, like how the man who left their home was never the same man who came back - but the fact that he tried, that he wanted to make this awful, wretched bit of misery into something worth laughing at... Clara wasn't sure what else to call it except for sweet. Though she was sure there was another word for it.

For Clara, unlike the vast majority of people he had to associate with, Malcolm's power to have a simple stare knock her flat and the times in which this occur were rarely unenjoyable. For Clara those moments of suspended, weightless breath could make her heart soar and ache in equal turns. She told Malcolm she loved that about him more than once, but the memory of the first time was what stuck out the most. He had laughed through his nose, showing a wide, gleeful grin before shaking his head in a sort of self-congratulatory shrug. "Should fucking hope you do, yeah?" he had said, laughing still, looking her straight on. Her knees had gone weak, the same as if she'd been kissed by those lips now moving to a smirk. "It's not done for my benefit is it now, sweetheart?"

Clara joined Malcolm in the kitchen where they stood in comfortable silence, stealing glances at each other askance. She smiled and leaned against the counter, watching him. Malcolm stood still, straight, taking the in the sight of her. The coffee didn't take long to finish, and he poured her a mug first and left her to the choice of creamer, knowing it depended on her mood. Malcolm had gone for black and that made Clara pause, reflecting on the choice as she lowered her mug back to the counter.

Malcolm only went for black coffee when the day was bound to be irreparably wretched.

Her hand was steady when Clara raises the mug again, her brain working fast. She could ask him about it, but she knew that was not for the best. Malcolm would tell her if it was something he felt capable of mentioning, if he had the energy to unleash a rant that was equal parts amusing as it was an agony to witness. Clara knew this, trusted that he knew he could do so, just as she knew that right now Malcolm wanted the solace of silence not for a lack of words to say, but for a current preference for their absence. Malcolm often took comfort in the quiet they could share together, as opposed to the moments when the lull was meant to be ruptured by a simple question from Clara's lips. Clara had time to learn the difference between his silences, though not much time was needed, to her surprise.

_We're more alike than he wants to realise. _Clara knew he loved that about her. That he was grateful, even. Astonishingly so. He said it all the time, not in so many words of course, and sometimes without words at all. But she still understood that his love was there. Reluctant though Clara was to congratulate herself on this astute observation, (_Oh, who am I kidding?_) she would readily and happily admit to having this particular skill. She could see Malcolm when only a fair few bothered to really _look._

Clara reached out to stroke his back, her hand slipping under his shirt to slide alongside the knobby, painfully thin notches of his spine. Was he eating right? Was he eating at all? Panic flared up in the back of Clara's mind when she realized she had no clear answer. They hadn't eaten together in weeks; him joining her in bed last night had been a surprise. She withdrew her hand, almost ashamed.

Malcolm hissed, twisted, then relaxed all within the span it took for Clara to take a sip from her mug and enjoy the sharp taste. "_Freezing_," he said, turning to look at her. The two of them stood facing each other in the kitchen with barely a foot of space standing between. Clara noticed this, eyebrows lifting high. Malcolm usually stayed as close as he could for as long as he could until it was time to go.

Clara cupped her hands around the mug and smiled at him. "That's why I put it there," she said succinctly, nodding sharp. "To warm up." _He's going through the coffee fast. Too fast_. But Clara said nothing. She wouldn't baby him. She wasn't his mother. Malcolm knew what he was doing and she understood the rituals he created in order to prepare for days like this. The somewhat bad, the fucking wretched, and the abysmal. Malcolm's had them all. _And now, so am I._

"Finish the pot," he said, dumping out the rest of his mug in the sink. It was barely a trickle, inky dark and oil-spill black. It slid down the drain like the rain now falling on the window.

Clara watched him walk off, knowing he was going to get dressed. It was obvious in the way he walked and how keen he was to avoid her eyes.

_He's already prepared. That's why he's so cold. _

Malcolm prepared for work the way a prisoner might steady himself for a lethal injection, veins aflame and heart stuttering in its final, angry throbs. The same grim, gutting resolve settled over him, transforming his face into a skull's mask with a matching leer. His shoulders tightened as they fell back, stiff. Even the way he walked changed itself to a loping, heavy stride. This wasn't the man Clara married, but it was the man that lived as a distinct, inseparable part of him, long at home inside his skin before she came around. Clara accepted this Malcolm. She pitied this Malcolm. The times she's had to cross paths with him, in the limited scenarios where she actually had to go to his job and see a part of what he did, Clara thought for a moment that she was almost impressed by him- until she remembered the reason why a person had to wear a mask at all. Until she remembered everything Malcolm's ever told her about his own. The more impressive a disguise can be, the more gutting it is to realize how much care was given to apply every crack and sealing seam.

_You're not going to think about that_. Clara listened to his footsteps from overhead as she made a vow. _You're going to bury these thoughts, bury them each and every time they try to pop up for air like a shrieking weed._ And yet she couldn't help but list off a few reasons why they were alive inside her head at all.

It was the weather: grim, granite grey, and cold. Even worse than usual.

It was the early hour: she was never at her happiest before dawn, unless she was still up from the night before.

It was Malcolm's mood, or rather the suggestion of it, that's put her in mind of all the things she can never fix, all the problems that have no solution – at least not a solution that would be remotely healthy to consider.

Clara finished what was left of the coffee and shut the urn off, flicking her nail across the flat, black knob. Malcolm was already coming down the stairs, walking fast. It's not that he wanted to leave, not exactly. But they both knew he had to.

Clara met Malcolm by the door. "Can I hope to expect you for dinner?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Probably not." Malcolm buttoned his coat shut, not looking at her. His teeth were bared and his breath came low, quiet, fast. "You know how it is."

"I know how it is," Clara echoed back. That got his attention fast. He looked up, eyes and glare cutting - but it was to see Clara smiling. Not because she was happy. Malcolm knew she wasn't. But his eyes lingered on the smile for as long as he could stand there to admire it, and they both knew it was because he was memorizing it, preparing to take the image with him through the day.

"I'll wait up for you," Clara said.

"Don't. One of us should be able to get some fucking rest."

"I'll wait up for you," Clara said again, eyebrows raised, smile turning suggestive.

The penny drops at last. Malcolm muttered something as he opened the door, eyeing Clara one last time as he stepped out – then stepped back, remembering. His hand pushed flat against the door, forcing it shut. He reached out with his other hand, cupped her face, his thumb brushing over her bottom lip as he leaned down for a kiss. It was harder than she expected, and certainly more passionate than she would have anticipated for the early morning hour. It was the kind of kiss that made her head spin and left her breath once more suspended. He kissed her again, no less eager or aching, but with a fading intensity. There was regret to the kiss, an apology that couldn't yet be said.

Clara got to give the last kiss, which she made almost absurdly chaste in comparison to the others. She knew he'd bring the memory with him to work, the same way he did when he was memorizing her smile. She wanted him to carry a little sweetness in to a world so fundamentally composed of anything but.

Malcolm straightened up and she dropped down to her normal height. They shared a long, lasting look before he opened the door again. "Wait up for me," he said, and she couldn't help but laugh at this obvious change in argument.

"I'll be in bed," she said, hoping to see him smile one last time.

The words clicked at once. He laughed, but it doesn't last. "Oh, fuck _me,_" he muttered, shaking his head. But he was smiling.

"That's the idea," Clara sang out in an undertone loud enough for Malcolm to hear. But he had already left, walking off down the steps.

Clara watched him leave for as long as she could stand to be there. The cold air of the morning was coming in through the open door, taking the warmth of his kiss away with every gust and breeze, but the effect of him lingered, his presence, ghost-like and looming, covered her as surely as a shadow swallows all in the night.

Clara shut the door and smiled, knowing it wouldn't be long until his warmth came back again.


	2. The Good Advice

**Notes: **Wow, color me totally surprised that people actually care about this fic! I guess the current hiatus, and impending post-Christmas hiatus, is leaving us all a little starved for fic? I'm very grateful that people took the time to stop and read this one, and to leave their thoughts. I really appreciate it :) Sorry it's been so long since an update. I'm a bit torn between a few pieces at the moment, but I promise to stick with this one. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>The Good Advice<strong>

Clara didn't often get angry, not to the length and depth and impressive nuclear expanse that Malcolm could, but when she did, oh, when her temper seethed up hard and the blood within her boiled, it could burn the very air she used to breathe. Lungs black and every breath like the gasp that blasts a fire back from its gutted, sputtering sparks, Clara endured every excruciating second a co-worker eyed her too long askance when her temper rose up like it was just then, just now. She sat silent in the lounge, seemingly patient as the other teachers dropped a comment veiled and loaded, but surface-level harmless enough not to be as gutted as such snark deserved.

It was always such petty things, too. That was the worst part of it. Because to call out a petty comment was to give it far more attention than it originally warranted, allowing it a power that it did not rightfully earn – and yet Clara couldn't help but be angrier all the same. During this particular week for particular reasons of a particularly biological nature, it had become more than she could normally stand. Usually her tolerance for such side remarks and lingering, probing stares was almost ulcer-inducingly impressive. As Malcolm once said, if she had a bollock to pop she'd have long since deflated both by now.

Clara knew it was useless to cling to what would only poison her in the end. That wisdom was her mother's, who would impart sage words with tender kisses that always seemed to make Clara's heart swell larger than her body could contain, filling her with a pride she found hard to name. Shouldn't it work in reverse, the parent being proud of the child? What person was proud of their parent? Clara was. And she still was, even now that her mother was gone.

Clara knew it was pointless to carry the weight of grudges and crosses, axes that required both grinding and planting in the perfectly vulnerable expanse of an offender's turned back – she knew this from Malcolm, who could never quite rid himself of such people. Some people were born to be endured long past their capacity to be interesting. She knew this, but knowing didn't make it any easier to set aside her temper. It only ignited like a fuse that had a short thread and a deceptively understated level of combustion.

That no one at Coal Hill noticed Clara's mood that day did not surprise her. She knew the value of a mask long before she'd ever met Malcolm, and liked to think she had a knack for them. Maybe her smiles were sharper or her laughter sounded less natural, no longer a gentle little trill but instead a wooden clunk like dead weight clumping down the stairs. _Boomp. Boomp. Boomp. Ha. Ha. Ha._ No one among the fellow teachers or the office workers or even the far more astute than she wanted to admit students could suspect that she was angry, nor could they understand why she might be if she dared to admit it. She couldn't decide if it was willful ignorance or another knot in the plot to throttle her with frustration. Some people seemed to thrive on being miniature agitators.

The only one who could probably see the problem flat out with barely more than a skimming glance was – who else? – her husband. Malcolm's was the only keen, cutting eye that didn't fill her heart with the inverted scream that preceded the real thing. Clara didn't mind letting Malcolm see what others would surely, gladly, and gleefully feast upon, all the weak parts of her heart and all the flaws and scars and burdens laid bare in an almost vulgarly honest spread. They were all hers to show and Malcolm's to know. It was not bravery that made her do this. Clara just didn't give a damn. Not anymore. Not with Malcolm.

There was nothing he could realistically use this information for, anyway. She told him this once, even used it as an explanation for why she confided in him so much and so freely (even if the wine helped loosen her tongue). "_There can't be much about me that'll matter to your camp. Or any rivaling ones for that matter."_

"_And who told you that?"_

"_It's just a hunch. I'm not important enough to ruin."_

"_I'll tell you something, right? You be grateful for that. You be more than fucking grateful, you be _ecstatic. _Because the day you matter to some of that lot would be a grim fucking day indeed."_

The wine was in her head as she listened to him talk, but there was not enough of it to make Clara blind to the warning thread winding through Malcolm's reply. She spun it back to its source, twisting what had come undone back together again. That wasn't the first time she realized Malcolm was speaking from experience, it was simply the first time she began to see what that experience could _mean_.

Before she had a chance to ask about what he meant, before she had a chance to offer vague but well-meaning words of sympathy or begin the awful plod through mindless, time-wasting chatter, Malcolm cut her to the quick and surprised her with the following: _"__And for whatever it's worth, you're important to me."_

Clara didn't often have to remember that moment. There was rarely a day that passed where she didn't think about it.

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><p>"Welcome home," Clara called out as she heard the front door open, because even in her anger there existed this distracting, soothing truth: Malcolm was home, he was there, and for all his complicated oddities, he made her happy. He wa<em>s<em> welcome, and she wanted him to feel as such no matter what else was going on inside her heart.

Clara turned in her seat on the couch to greet him, instinct making her fix a smile in place when Malcolm walked into the room. He took one look at her as he reached up to unwind the scarf from around his neck, seeing right through her own veil.

"So which miserable fuck ruined your day?" It was as much of a joke as it was a sincere question. He barely took the time to settle in at home after a long day of work before he tuned himself to her mood, his attention riveted to her in a way that thrilled her still. His coat was still on, scarf still in place, gloves half-removed – but his eyes were pinned entirely to her.

That in itself was not unusual. Malcolm often looked long and lingeringly so at Clara. But it never failed to give her a real, heart-deep charge no matter how often it happened, or how often she caught him at it.

It was uncanny how much of the world could fall down into disregard the instant the door shut behind either one of them, especially on the days when Malcolm or Clara needed to shed such burdening weight the most. On bad days, on wretched days, on days that leave one or both of them gutted and hollowed and marveling at the simple task of completing a standard function such as walking, there was nothing they liked more than to drop all other concerns and focus entirely on the person in front of them: the one they wanted against all odds, reason, and circumstance.

This self-contained isolation, this universe condensed between two such unlikely people, even happened on the good days too – because those exist. They do. Even if sometimes they had to work hard to remember that good days could happen, clinging to every memory and thought in the same way that twice removed great aunt Clara had would clink and count her rosary. Good days. _Clink_. Good days can still happen. _Clink clink_.

She would think this no matter how the world at large did its best to press up against the hedges and bricks and bones and dust of their sanctuary. And that relentless assault on their happiness would never stop – she knew this, accepted it, and hated it as much as she knew she ought to make some kind of peace with it.

_That's just the way life is._ The world always wanted in where it would do well to stay without. Such an invasion showed in the little things that would make no one else pause to hear it, little signs of life intruding upon the world Clara and Malcolm had built together inside of their home. The house phone would ring, as well as their respective mobiles, and messages would pile up with insistent pings inside either inbox, reminders that their time and attention were wanted elsewhere. But the ease in which the pair of them could abandon the binds and cares and vague concerns of their respective professional worlds quietly impressed Clara with every day it occurred. It would undoubtedly draw the flames of ire and knife-like, ravenous attention should anyone out of this marital loop learn of it – which was, oddly enough, exactly what Clara's current problem was.

"People at work are starting to talk again," Clara said.

"Impressive. D'you think they'll work their way up to walking soon?"

"I wouldn't overestimate them, Malcolm," she said. That was, after all, why she was so cross to begin with. She expected her coworkers to be more... Noble, more compassionate, than what they ended up being. She expected them to act as decent people with a working concept of shame and how to avoid it, rather than digging into a pile of perfectly contained secrets to grind on through the lounge gossip mill. "But that's not what I meant and you know it."

The gloves were gone from Malcolm's thin, long hands, as well as the scarf Clara picked out for him last Christmas, bound up in one of the sleeves of the coat as he put all three over the back of the couch. Clara notices that his tie is crooked, coming loose in his fingers as he rounded the couch to join Clara where she sat. She wasn't quite sulking but getting close to it. His presence should help with that. Help rid her of the mood, at least.

There was enough space on the sofa for him to stretch out comfortably, to the full length of his lanky, string-thin limbs, but for reasons only the two of them understood, Malcolm chose to sit close enough to touch Clara – but he didn't. At first she thought he was just minding their individual boundaries, imagining limits and blocks and all manner of barbed, brutal wiring wrapped around her hunched figure, barriers that separated any potential efforts to be touched. But then she realized now, that wasn't quite true. _That's how Malcolm is with me: present, close, mindful, but rarely the one to make any first moves. Usually saves that for me - until he desperately needs to._

Malcolm watched Clara watching him, both of them waiting, contemplating the other, and soon she tilted her head to the side, leaning against his arm, thudding her frown-heavy cheek against his shoulder. She hears him take a quick breath, and then the pair of them listened to the filtered noises of the world outside pouring in. A dog was barking down the way. A mother laughed while her children screamed, calling an end to a game that makes a little girl start to cry. Tires shrieked up the road, rubber burning and sliding over the pavement – perhaps there was an accident, but Clara couldn't hear the crunching, breaking crash. She held her breath, waiting for it to happen. The impact never came.

Malcolm leaned back against the weight Clara gave, his words warm, his voice low. "What are they saying now?" he asked.

Clara reached out with her left hand for his matching own, which had turned up to face hers in anticipation of the touch. The golden bands they shared thudded against each other as she folded her fingers between his, making another little metallic _clink_. _Good days, __she_ thinks, looking at the way the rings still shine beneath their obvious wear. In this case, one of the best days of her life so far. Even if Malcolm _had_ ducked out of a fund-raising luncheon to meet her at the courthouse, boutonniere pinned crooked onto this lapel, their wedding had been if not the stuff of fairytales, at least the meatier content of a damned interesting novel.

Clara's hand often gets lost in his but now that it's on top, holding so tightly onto him that she feel his bones straining back under her own, there's a strength alive inside that Clara doesn't immediately recognize. Wondering what it could be, she started to speak. "Have you ever heard an argument so phenomenally stupid it's almost physically painful trying to retell it to another person?" she asked.

Malcolm laughed. "Sweetheart, remind me where the fuck I work again."

Clara chuckled, squeezing his hand. "Point taken. It's that new secretary they brought in last term. She's got it into her head to go round getting to know us which – well, not in itself a bad thing. Except for how she does it. She never actually talks directly _to_ you. She sits others down instead and has them talk _about_ you." Clara paused, pulling back from Malcolm long enough to shake a crick out of her neck, a consequence of the position they were in and their difference in height. It wasn't as bad when they were sitting down, but he did have a tendency to loom. "And that's how the wedding ring came up again, along with guesses as to what kind of man I've got stowed away somewhere."

"So?" he demanded. Not obliviously, and not cruelly either, just a direct, succinct, honest question.

"So it's not that I care what they think, Malcolm," Clara said, peering up at him. "I don't. I don't give a damn. But I care that they think I should care and won't stop needling me about the details."

"Let them try," he said, not quite shrugging, but he shook his head as he held on tighter to her hand, assuming that she'd try to stand up and break away from him. "A prick'll be a prick, what do you expect?"

"I _expected_ –" Clara started to say, then stopped, because she knew that was her first mistake as per one of her own mottoes. _Expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed. __It was a horrible lesson to learn and a painful ideal to keep up, but life hadn't exactly kind. Clara knew her way around lies and smiles, when to do either and when to let them fall away in shreds, just as she knew the absolute peril involved in letting her heart go aloft to something like hope. She knew that before she met Malcolm, and against all odds his presence in her life seemed to actually defy this adage._

Malcolm's adaptation of her motto had gone one cynical note deeper: _Expect nothing but disappointment. __They'd laugh to hear him say it, but the silence that lingered after the statement let both Clara and Malcolm know there was far too deep a note of truth to be ignored. They'd still been dating when he shared that information with her. That was around the time she invited him to stay over for the first time._

_Clara took a breath and tried again. _"I _wanted_ to be left alone, like I do for them. I don't think that's asking too much. It's me wanting to be respected, to be left with – I don't know. Something like dignity only not as dire."

Malcolm shifted against her, as if there was something in this remark that jabbed at him the way a thorn might ache and grind against the bottom of his spine. With her eyes on their locked hands and Malcolm's eyes peering aside at the way Clara's lashes bend down in a shadow across her gaze, Clara took in a long breath. Not out of anger, no. This was not the sort of inverted gasp that was born from fires whose kindling and sparks still remained long after the blaze had been smothered. It was the sort of breath that fortified and gave comfort, a breath that rooted down marrow deep and intensified each time Malcolm was near her – and vice versa. It was the sort of breath Malcolm took near and around and because of Clara – and she knew this because she'd seen it first hand. They both thrived in the air around each other, which was more than enough of a reason to shut out the world and focus shamelessly on themselves.

Malcolm waited a while before speaking again. "I'm not going to say you should know better," he said, taking care to deliver every word in the same tone that often talked Clara out of the coldest and most dreaded nightmares. "But I _will _say you should start wanting a lot fucking less."

"I didn't think I was asking for much to begin with," Clara muttered.

"See to an ordinary functioning person, you wouldn't be, right? Like to me – to me you're not. But you're not working with ordinary fucking people, are you?"

"No," Clara said.

"There's only two kinds of people in a job like that," Malcolm continued. "People who spew shit and the people who eat it." He caught Clara's scowl, not necessarily at the language he chose as much as the image it created. He continued regardless. "Or sometimes there's people like you. People who try to stay outside of that. Well removed. Far a-fucking-field, hoping they're far enough back to avoid the splatter."

Malcolm slipped his hand out from under Clara's and pulled it back, letting his touch fall instead on the back of her neck and the ever-growing knot of tension that threads her shoulders up and tight, together, making Clara hunch into herself. It was easier to listen to what Malcolm said next when he was so dutifully at work offering some small bit of physical comfort that truth couldn't provide.

"Well you _can't_ avoid it, darling," he said, tempering the harsh blow of his words with a contrasting, tender touch. "But what you can do is stand back, smile, and watch them all drown in it. Then you can pick off the ones that try to make it out."

There was a moment, just a moment and no more, where Clara could sense his eyes on her, where she could feel the probing, curious trail of that well loved gaze as it moved from her expression (receptive, thoughtful), to the way her posture has changed under his touch (straighter, less tight). It didn't take Clara long to realize Malcolm was trying to anticipate her response, both in the way he looked at her and the way he kept his hand almost pinned to the top of her back. _Not one to be left long in the dark, my husband._ No, Malcolm doesn't just need to know where he stands, he needs to know five steps ahead of the next one and then figure out all the ways those steps could stumble and diverge off to something else. It's the same maddeningly thin line that can so easily become a garrote, even to those who set its course with care. Though this kind of behavior seems to be less a matter of stress and desperate, groping grabs for power when he does this with Clara. With her it is a simple, concerned curiosity.

"Thank you," Clara said, and he responded only by rubbing the back of her neck for a few minutes more in silence. At times he let his fingers stray up to the back of her hair, sifting through the strands that come loose from the bun she did in a lazy, sleepy haste that morning. It had been clear to Clara for a while now that while Malcolm may not often initiate these touches, he was less likely to be the one to stop them. There was something about any and all ranging forms of intimate contact that, while he seldom set them into motion, he'd work to keep them going, needing the affection for himself as much as it needs to be given.

And then, just like that, the time for comfort passed. Clara and Malcolm both stood and separated, him moving to the kitchen and eager to start dinner, Clara towards the front of the house to pick up the folders she'd thrown on a table in a heap, ready to be rid of them. It took some time to sort through them, and when she did she soon decided to bring these little bits of work into the living room that adjoined the kitchen, murmuring appreciatively at the smells already rising off the pans Malcolm set about on the stove. Of course he scoffed at her admiration, lightly mocking her.

"You're still a culinary novice, sweetheart," he said, "and that's being _kind_."

"That doesn't mean I don't know a good meal in the making," Clara pointed out to him. She pulled her hair out of the bun and combed the strands over one shoulder, eyeing the papers she separated in front of her on the coffee table. "And you haven't let me down yet, you know."

"Wasn't there a motto in this house about having expectations?" he asked, knowing the answer already. Just as Clara knew he wanted to distract her from any lingering remnants of her bad mood.

"_Expect nothing but disappointment" __wa_s his. "_Expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed," __wa_s hers. Clara smiled as she leaned back against the sofa cushions to watch him at work, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up to his elbows, showing the thin, strained muscles of either arm. That alone was distracting, even at this distance. Clara enjoyed the sight for a few seconds more in a purely self-indulgent, shameless manner, before Malcolm peered over at Clara, anticipating an answer.

"Yes, there is," Clara said, "but I never once thought to apply that to you."

It wasn't exactly a lie. Not fully, not complete. And even so, it was only natural to be let down once in a while, even by the person towards which she had long since come to feel a thing like love. It takes more than a muscle to fall in love, after all. And love, like muscles, needs exertion if it ever wants to mean anything.

Clara wondered if she'd ever let Malcolm down. Surely she must have – it's only natural, really. Something to be expected – even if expectation itself was against his own credo. But the way Malcolm smiled at her, that wide, disarming grin, too full of teeth and showing the deep bends of crow's feet at the edge of either eye, made her briefly reconsider this. And when he answered she was even more confused.

"Likewise," he said, his heart in the simple, single word.


	3. The Distraction

**Notes: **An update double (triple?) feature before I go off to bed for the night. Just a heads up, this chapter includes sexual content. Not sure _how _graphic it is, but the content's there all the same. Finally another reason for the M rating besides cursing, eh? Also sorry for the hopelessly inconsistent spellings and vernacular between American English and, y'know, proper English. I'm lazy, I have no excuse.

* * *

><p><strong>The Distraction<strong>

It was the smell of coffee that woke Clara up – but it was early, far too early. She peered bleary eyed and dream-heavy over at the clock. 3:38 in the morning.

"Malcolm?" she called, her voice groggy and weighted with sleep. She passed her hand across the blankets and sheets behind her, searching for him. It was cold, far too cold. He either left long ago, or never came to bed.

Once the heavy noose of sleep fell off her, Clara remembered that she had gone to bed alone that night. Malcolm had called her quickly and rung off without so much as a goodbye to say he wouldn't be home that night. And he'd told the truth – he was home that _morning_, if Clara wanted to get a bit technical about it.

Clara headed out to the hall, taking the sharp left to the stairs, and descended them carefully. Sleep made lead of her limbs and she could feel her eyes growing watery and strained, a protest against the dreams recently discarded. She didn't remember much about them. She didn't think they were much to miss, either. Clara had a vague impression that they were mostly nightmares.

Clara certainly did not expect to be up this hour, nor did she even want to be – but for Malcolm, she didn't mind making _some _exceptions. Not always, of course, and definitely not all time – but when she was needed, yes. That would be nice.

Knuckling either eye and stifling a yawn as she reached the bottom step, Clara called out once more. "Malcolm?"

"Back here," he said, his voice muffled. It came from the living room, so she stumbled towards that. It helped that he kept a light on, putting Clara in mind of the dream she had left behind. Something about shadows, tunnels, and the one long, distant light guiding her back out to the safer end. Malcolm had been there – or had she just wished he'd been?

"What are you doing up so late?" she asked, yawning into her hand as she approached him. Malcolm's back was to her as he sat hunched on the couch, bent forward with his shoulders raised. He'd taken off his suit coat and undid the buttons at his wrists, leaving him free to push the sleeves up to his elbows, which are planted on either one of his knobby knees. But other than that he looks no more undressed and comfortable than as if he were still in the office. Clara smiled briefly at the sight of his striped socks – how she had once teased them for this little blow to his otherwise flawless sense of fashion. Then she'd started buying them for his birthdays and he started to grumble less and thank her more.

In that moment, perhaps due to the susceptibility of her still sleepy mind and how impressionable it was to less-than-logical thoughts, Clara realized something. These strangely sweet striped socks Malcolm wore were probably one small way he could inject a bit of brevity into the awful delirium that was the too large portion of his life allotted to his job. And for some reason that broke her heart almost clean through.

"I've been up later than this," he said, completely unaware of his wife's emotional frailty. His chin was propped up in his hand as he passed over one sheet to another. "This doesn't mean a fucking thing."

But it did mean something, and Clara knew it – and what's more so did he. _He's only lying. He only lies to me when he's too tired to think I'll notice the difference. _"That's not really an answer," Clara pointed out.

"Was it even a proper question?" Malcolm fired back, scoffing without any substance to his anger. Clara couldn't remember the last time he was actually angry with her, nor did she think he ever was. It's a fact which never failed to make him laugh in both shock and wonder whenever it dawned on him – which was often. He was seldom not angry, her husband.

Malcolm made some noise that could have been a sigh, except not so vulnerable as that, so perhaps it was more than a huff. He said, "It's _work_, sweetheart. It's always fuckin' work, isn't it? That's always the answer."

Clara said nothing. She peered at the mostly empty cup of coffee on the table in front of him, placed carefully away from the papers he'd been poring over. Snatching up the mug, she carried it to the kitchen for a refill, lingering long enough to load up a plate of the biscuits he so loved. That's partially why Clara brought them earlier in the week on her way back from Coal Hill, picking up a few things they needed for the kitchen. She knew Malcolm would enjoy them when he got around to coming home long enough to do more than breeze through the rooms, ceasing the wrathful prattling long enough to kiss her cheek, wish her a good day, and swoop off again. The other reason was that Clara liked them quite a bit herself.

Clara, the coffee, and the little biscuits arranged neatly on the plate all return to Malcolm's side, all treats he enjoyed to different degrees. But he barely noticed.

This was no unusual, especially on the nights – mornings? – when Malcolm had to bring the work home with him. His mind was always mired in tasks and toils he only mentioned to her in the quickest, most dismissive, passing comments before. Often these confessions of frustration came unbidden and most unexpected, which was how Clara knew he really had to talk about it. If a problem can't be quelled with a glare, a grit of the teeth, or a heartily devoted, impromptu cooking lesson then it was a bloody problem indeed – and one Clara really wished he would let her help solve. Even if all she could do was listen to him, that had to matter. That had to help. Even if all the support she could give was the strength inside her two hands holding on to him, that had to mean _something_ – even to a man as fearsome as he.

That Malcolm was saying so little here and now could mean this late night at the office turning into an early morning on the couch didn't bother him all too much, or he was simply trying to be considerate. It _was_ late, after all. He knew it was late mostly in Clara's estimate of the concept, whose Coal Hill schedule was one he called, "Fittingly benign, even if it involves chasing around little fucking kiddies for half the day." He clearly had no intention on heading up to bed soon, but he'd been so quiet coming in and that surely hadn't been done for his own benefit. Despite what Clara knew others said about the man, Malcolm _had_ been known to be compassionate when it mattered – she wouldn't have married him if he couldn't be.

Clara joined him on the couch, sliding one arm around his hunched, heavy shoulders as if she could dislodge the weight that grew there. That got a reaction. _Finally_, she huffed quietly.

"Sweetheart, you're fuckin' _freezing_," he hissed, but Clara could feel him relax into her touch. She once joked that his body seemed to act to spite his mouth and he'd grinned at this, his stormy eyes oddly bright as he joined her for a laugh. He'd made no arguments against that.

Clara wrapped her other arm around his chest, hugging him lazily from the side and letting her head rest on his shoulder. "Come up to bed," she said. "You're tired."

"_You're_ tired. _I'm _working," he said, but Clara could feel a hand creeping round her waist and then across the small of her back, moving so slowly. His hand belied his tone and the dismissal that made each word seem like a rejection: he wanted her there, was clearly glad to have her near at hand judging how he immediately began to rub the pressure that always built at the very small of her back within seconds of her sitting down next to him.

"Then stop working and be tired so we can go sleep," Clara said, enjoying the feel of his arm around her, enjoying very much the warmth of his hand moving in a slow, dreamer's stroke with his fingers leading the caress.

"You say that as if it's the easiest fucking thing."

"Because it is," Clara persisted, half teasing, mostly kidding, but entirely loving the way he scowled at her side-long, one eyebrow arched over his glasses. Clara loved it when he wore them – there was something so delightful about watching them fog up when she pressed in close to kiss him. "If you're going to be difficult, at least have a biscuit. Or the coffee, it'll only get cold. I did bring you a new cup."

"I _know _you brought the cup. I _see _the cup, right?" He pulled his arm back, hand lashing out fast to snatch one of the biscuits off the plate – and then he handed it to Clara, curious to see her response.

An idea dawned on Clara as she gazed at him, smiling though he was not, her eyes flashing as his only darkened behind his lenses. Clara recognized that look completely, and any doubt she might have had about how focused he was on his work transformed from suspicion into belief. He didn't give a good goddamn about the papers in front of him now that she was here.

They both knew that he ought to be. And perhaps he even feels guilty about it just a little, somewhere inside – but it didn't last long enough to be genuine. And this was the only form of fair-weather regret inherent in her husband that Clara truly did not mind. Quite the contrary, she would be the first to commend him for having it at all. Regrets were stones in the pockets of a soul, making braver hearts drown in even the calmest of currents.

So instead of taking her hands off him to grab the biscuit – surely that's what he expected her to do, yes? – she leaned forward, eyes locked onto him, her lips pursed. Putting just the edge of her teeth on the food he offered, Clara sank them just hard enough to bite, snapping off a jagged little piece. She moved her lips and tongue forward, grazing the very tips of his fingers with a gratuitous sort of leisurely pace. He was swearing at her, his voice low, calling her all manner of names. And foul though they all are, coming from him Clara knew they were meant as high praise. As she'd told him once, she wouldn't have bothered to marry him if she took umbrage to his particular brand of vulgar compliments. In some moods she even found them sort of charming.

"Who the fuck makes biscuits sexual?" he asked her.

"I do," she said, nodding promptly as she straightened up, pulled back her arms, and snatched the rest of the treat out of his hand. She took another bite and considered him, smiling devilishly. "Have I convinced you yet?"

"No," he said flatly, too fast, with his eyes on her mouth.

Clara reached out and pulled the glasses off his face, flipping them round so she could wear them. He stared at Clara for the longest stretch of silence she'd heard from him in months. To anyone else it'd be horrifying, a cause for fear and panic. But for Clara, Malcolm's silence was a sign of success.

"How about now?" Clara asked, doing her best impression of his worst frown.

"Get the fuck to bed," he said, but he was smiling now. Clara almost thought he was unable to help it.

Clara stood up, glasses still on, squinting at him through the lenses. "And what about you?" she asked as she pulled the glasses off her face. She folded the little wiry legs down, and handed them back.

Malcolm's fingers closed around her wrist and he pulled her closer, fast, with a force she could not resist. Nose to nose, eye to eye, he looked her over slowly, focusing longest on her lips again.

"See you in ten," he said, drawing out the words so that his lips could graze hers in a lingering hint of a kiss. And then he let her go, all but pushing Clara lightly back to stand up straight again.

Clara turned at once and headed back to the stairs, all thoughts of sleep abandoned.

Malcolm never came up to bed.

* * *

><p>Later that day, when they were both properly awake but separated, Clara received another phone call. It was Malcolm again.<p>

She immediately suspected Malcolm's "emergency of a marrow-excreting nature" was, perhaps, not as dire as all that. He enjoyed his dramatic, clever phrasing – some might even call it near-to histrionic – because they were effective in conveying both a point and a perspective: how he felt and just what he was having so many feelings _about_. It was often a source of strange charm for Clara to pore over when they were at home together, the telly on mute and a pleasant conversation flowing between them, lively, vivid, each sentence punctuated by sharp, tense gestures. Mostly she listened when Malcolm reached states like that – she listened because she was looking for the heart beneath the anger and the fire, certain that it hadn't become a charred lump of ash just yet.

"_Not with you around," _he once said to her. But she let the comment go unremarked upon based on the circumstances. The two of them were in bed for a start, Clara wide awake and happily pinned beneath the warmth his slowly relaxing body provided; Malcolm was nearly asleep, his head turned to rest on her breasts, lips moving faintly across the part just to the side of her heart. That's when he said it. _"__Thought I'd have had a fucking stroke by now, but not anymore. Not with you around."_

Clara had once read in a magazine left behind in the lounge at Coal Hill that physical exhaustion, like inebriation, could make a person tell truths they were not ready to say when their bodies weren't drained to such a vulnerable point. She took this bit of insight for a fact because it seemed sensible enough, and surely it was understandable given her own experiences with rambling on when her body was too tired to remain alert. She revealed far more embarrassing things to friends during childhood sleepovers than she would be pressed to say to them when wide awake, that was for sure. But it took her marriage to the notorious _Herr Tucker _to really _see _this trait in action, to see the way sleep could loosen a tongue until such a habit became a penchant for revealing truths only when safely ensconced in the shadows.

But today's phone call defied this fact. It was not merely a confession made when the mind was otherwise occupied, battling off sleep. It was a penance as much as it was a plea. Clara would not tolerate anything less.

Clara answered on the third ring, surprised to hear from him so soon – unless, of course, he was calling to say how late he would be. Again.

"Get down here," was all he said, his voice low, urgent.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, not moving from her place on the couch. She'd only just gotten home a few minutes ago, and she hadn't planned to do anything more taxing than take a long soak in the bath until Malcolm came home. _If he's actually going to come back._

"I can answer that when I see you, yeah? Just... Get here."

Malcolm didn't often call her up out of nowhere like this, and when he did he certainly did not ask Clara to stop by the building as if it were the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. Malcolm had long since made it known that neither of them could dare risk letting invasive eyes and prying minds come close to either to herself or the pair of them, together. That he'd been wearing a wedding ring since they hurriedly exchange vows earlier in the year remained, or so he claimed, a fact that flies over the heads of almost every single person he met at work.

"_Except Sam," _he had corrected himself._ "__But it helps that she has a reliably operating brain stem."_

Clara understood why they need to be kept a secret. She even agreed with the decision, however much she both rued and lamented its necessity. And really, even without Malcolm's constant colorful commentary on the subject and how much it wore him down beyond his bone marrow, there was no place in all of Britain she would rather be at _less _than where her husband had to spend far too much of his days. _If he's asking me to come it must be serious, _Clara reasoned. _Or at least Malcolm's version of serious. _Which could be counted on to be quite serious indeed.

Malcolm called again just as she arrived at the building. He'd earlier mentioned something about DoSAC changing locations in a recent departmental shuffle, and so Clara had followed the directions he'd hissed in her ear as she told him she'd be over as soon as she could.

The doors to the lift slid shut as she answered her phone, staring into the shimmering, foggy reflection of her face in the metal doors. "Yes?"

"Where are you?" His voice was attentive, alert.

Clara looked up. The light over the lift door flashed, moving from one number to the next. "In the lift. Almost at the third floor. Why?"

"Alone?"

"... Yes?" she said, her voice rising along with an eyebrow. "It's just me in here, if that's what you mean." Clara frowned, watching her face change from a puzzled look to one of outright confusion. "Malcolm, what's this all about?"

"Talk soon," was all he said, and he hung up before she could demand a complete explanation.

Not that she really wanted to, all things considered. Clara recognized that tone of his. She had heard it before – not often, which was why it stood out in her mind along with a few cheek-flushing memories about furtive whispers, warm breath, and groping, exploratory hands – both hers _and _his.

And suddenly it becomes abundantly clear what he needed. Clara laughed and put her phone into her purse, trying not to let it turn into an all out wicked cackle. _Really? Here? _Could he be any more mental? It was almost too absurd to accept, but there really was no other alternative. Clara _knew _that tone in his voice, and she had no doubt it would match the lidded gaze once he finally arrived. _I love that look. I hate that look – it's almost too sweet, in a way._

That thought distracted Clara for a long, delightful moment, but she wouldn't let herself focus on that daydream for long. Best save it for when he showed. He would deserve as much teasing as she could stand to dish out, not just for calling her up as if it were a life or death situation that required her guidance, but for lying to her earlier that morning.

Clara folded her arms across her chest, one foot tapping in a steady, hasty rhythm against the lift's tiled floor. She noticed its reflection in the mirror-paneled walls that surrounded her, her foot nothing more than a little black-booted blur in the glass. The lift let out a _ding _and slid open at the fourth floor – and there he was, waiting, looking for all the world as if he was _not_ waiting, staring blankly at the mobile in his hand.

Clara could see a few people scurry out of sight behind Malcolm's back, their eyes peeled and opened wide to stare at him as he walked straight onto the lift, not looking at his wife. Her heart almost stopped when he finally did. His eyes were blazing hard, full to the brim of the look she very much expected them to show.

And she laughed again. She couldn't help it. "Oh, Malcolm," she said, shaking her head slowly back and forth, dark brown hair shifting. There was quite a bit more to say besides that, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Not yet.

The doors slid shut as he turned to the panel of buttons on his left. Casually, with an air of absolute indifference, he jammed several of the buttons in a row, pressing down hard until each little plastic cap was stuck down. They were still lit up and blinking fast. An emergency light flared on just above the panel's phone to be used in times such as this, but Malcolm made no effort to put in a call. He even knocked it off the hook for good measure, and Clara laughed again at this, admiring his attention to almost petulant detail.

"Did you just to trap us in here?" she asked him, arms still folded, foot still tapping.

Malcolm looked Clara over, showing just the faintest trace of a smile. It was as if he had to force himself to put the expression on, working hard through the mask that she knows falls so heavily and readily in place whenever he left the house. Clara wanted to help him through the effort – surely it can't be easy, letting the Malcolm she married rise up to take the place of the Malcolm she pitied, especially considering where they both were right now: right in the thick of it. But the longer he looked at her the easier it was for him to lose the mask, as if her gaze alone had a power she couldn't control.

"Temporarily," he said at last. "This lift's the most reliable thing in the whole fucking building, if you can believe it."

Clara peered around, eyebrows lifting again. "It all looks new to me," she said, chin raised, head tilted back to keep him in her sight as he stepped closer. "Is there a fault somewhere I'm not seeing?"

"It jams up when you give it too many fucking things to do," he said, reaching out to cup her face with both of his hands, sliding his fingers through her hair. "Much like the sacks of wank in each department."

"Lovely image," Clara said as he passed his fingers through her hair again. Clara enjoyed this little bit of comfort, knowing she had told him time and again how much she liked it when he played with her hair. He didn't do it often, that he's even doing it now must mean he's either trying to make nice or make up for the lie. Clara had vivid memories of him tugging on it hard when the pair of them shifted and fumbled in their sleep, not quite used to sharing a bed in the early days. But she preferred the memory of him carefully and close to tenderly brushing his fingers through it when she removed it from the bun and braid combination she'd worn on her wedding day. That Clara had kept her hair up like that until he'd gotten home later had been besides the point, nor had Malcolm chided her for it. She didn't want to change out of what felt like a costume until he walked through the door and saw her still in her little white sun dress, wedding bouquet resting in long, fluted glass on the table. She didn't want to take off what she never thought she'd have a chance to wear in the first place – and he had cherished the sight of her like that, waiting for him at home. An unconventional image of a bride to be sure, but his bride all the same. And he her husband.

Malcolm brushed a thumb over Clara's bottom lip, drinking in the way she shivered at his touch. Not long after that he kissed her, a warm, slow kiss, the kind that always made Clara's knees weak, especially when he worked his tongue into it. Which he did here, of course. Malcolm's hands left her face as his arms moved around Clara, all but holding her up as he pulled her close. It was almost enough to tug Clara off balance, and so she pushed up to the tops of her toes, balancing on that black wedge of boot in order to meet his lips again, taking charge of the kiss.

_Really? Here? _She asked herself, repeating the words she had meant to say to him. But it was hard to resist Malcolm when he was kissing like _this_. And yet resist Clara did. She knew she had to think clearly. She had to be practical, since it was shamefully clear he could not.

"Malcolm?" she gasped in between each kiss, returning as many as he gave. Clara moved her head to the side to continue speaking, but he simply moved from her lips to her cheek, his voice a low, wordless murmur that almost made Clara limp. She could hear him cursing, letting loose a stream of complaints she could barely make out, but then his mouth was at her neck, kissing, tasting, moving the edge of his teeth against her skin.

Clara's arms locked around his neck in an effort to hold onto him as much as she was interested in drawing him closer against her body. She was flat against him now, well aware of his body and the way it seemed to press and give and _fit _against hers – but even then she forced herself to keep a clear head. It helped when she closed her eyes. Her thoughts seemed easier to pin down when she wasn't looking at him. Watching Malcolm in the mirror combined with feeling him against her was almost too much to bear.

"Right here?" was all she managed to ask, her voice forced out between another gasp. It almost sounded like a squeak.

"Clearly," he purred.

"Aren't there... cameras?" Clara glanced into the mirror again. _Bad idea. Oh, there has never been a worse idea than that, Clara_. Watching him caress her, his kisses turning to harder presses of lips with far more bite than sweetness, made Clara's knees weak again – and then he was lifting her up, pressing her against the wall.

"Hasn't worked in months," he said.

Clara was actually relieved to hear this – and then felt instantly worried that she was relieved.

As if he could sense these thoughts, Malcolm pulled back just far enough to look at Clara's eyes, searching for hesitation there, waiting for her to tell him to stop. On instinct she smiled, her face flushed, her breath still hard to catch. But he was still waiting. Clara knew he would wait for her word no matter what it was, even if she told him to stop.

"Go on," Clara told him, smiling as sweetly as she could. "I didn't come all this way for nothing."

"Oh sweetheart, you haven't come _yet_," he teased. Clara laughed and soon Malcolm joined in, laughing and shaking their heads at how _awful _that line was, though his tone suggested it was not merely a simple statement of fact. It was a promise.

Malcolm let Clara go long enough for her to settle back down on her feet. Her arms disengaged from his neck as she set about completing the thoroughly awkward process of removing the one fashion impediment to this whole affair.

"Stop staring," she hissed, though if he was going to look, Clara decided at the last second that it might as well make it worth his while. She shifted her hips with just a bit more exaggeration than was probably required for removing her underwear, and she glared at him as he smiled and leaned back just a bit, admiring the sight.

"I mean it," she continued, putting all the tension he had drawn out of her into her voice and the power of her stare. Clara balled up her panties into a fist – and then tucked them safely into the pocket of his suit coat. Smiling, giving it a little tap so he knew they were safe and sound, Clara added, "Stop staring at me and get to work."

Clara had just enough time to spare on the thought that it was lucky she was in a skirt as he leaned forward and swept her off her feet again, holding her up against the mirrored wall. Clara locked her arms around his neck and gave him a long, lasting kiss, wrapping her legs around his waist. _A skirt without stockings no less, _she added to herself, fighting back a smile. The way the two of them were going at it right now left Clara without a shred of doubt that those poor 'hose would have been torn in the process. That had happened once, though it was under significantly less interesting circumstances. Malcolm sent home a dozen replacement pairs as penance, all of them in navy blue and thick, dark charcoal grey ("Like your hair?" "Fuck you too, darling, it's not grey _yet_,"). Some were even wrapped in little red and pink ribbons, which was a level of tender contrition Clara didn't fully understand considering she had only torn the first pair by tripping up the stairs after him.

With this memory in mind, Clara couldn't help but laugh. She always laughed when she was nervous and coming undone at the seams. Malcolm knew this, and he was kind enough not to tease her _too _much for it – even if he was also completely capable, _and_ willing, of making Clara laugh and blush all the more throughout the whole nerve-fraying process

"Just like old times, then?" she asked, remembering stolen moments like this from the days just after their marriage. "Please tell me this isn't idea of christening the new building."

"You have to admit it's much better than the fucking cupboard, yes?" he murmured against her throat, one arm releasing Clara so he could put that hand to better use undoing his belt. Her heart raced as she watched him in the reflection, but both her nerves and his joke got the best of her again.

Clara giggled, unable to help it. "_Phrasing_," she teased.

"Oh, don't start," he sighed, his breath cutting off as Clara nipped her teeth into his bottom lip.

"And for the record yes, this is better," she said, catching his half-lidded gaze and the lust alive inside it. "I vastly prefer the _fucking _lift over the cupboard."

"Don't get clever," Malcolm muttered again, undoing his button and fly.

Clara ran the tip of her nails down the back of his neck, knowing he'd shiver (he did), knowing he'd moan (almost), knowing that he'd mix her name in with a low hiss (he did, again and again and again). She smiled, all laughter gone, all nerves settled. His voice could do that to her far too easily, just as much as it had to power to rile her up again.

Clara knew it was the same for him, from her.

"I don't have to get clever," she said. "I already am."

"And how fucking long did it take you to realize what I called you for, eh?"

"Shut up." Clara tightened her legs around him as he kissed her once more, short, hard, with no tenderness involved. Her skirt was up above her hips now and though it was far from glamorous, wretchedly unromantic, but so _fitting_, so _worth it_, and so _perfect _for them and what Clara herself was feeling in that moment, she reached down to fit the tip of him inside her.

Malcolm laughed at this brazen act, a warm, low laugh that said how much he adored her in that moment more than he'd often given words to say – but Clara didn't mind. Clara had always been suspicious of people who existed in a constant need to hear or say such tender phrases as how much they were loved and how much they could feel that love. That she had found a man who could save those words for strangely suitable occasions – quick sex in public, falling asleep against her breasts, on the road up to her gran's for a holiday, when he was planning to eat the last biscuit in the tin and didn't want her to get cross – was as rewarding as it was relieving. She wasn't alone. She didn't have to hide or fake at hing.

Malcolm pushed further inside Clara, testing her, filling her, pausing just long enough to listen to her appreciative gasp. Her chest heaved so that her breasts swelled up against him, drawing his eyes down to the buttons of her short-sleeved blouse.

"Don't you dare," Clara growled. "I like this one."

"Should've taken it off," he grumbled, pushing in deeper.

Clara smirked, her eyes finding his as Malcolm's gaze grew darker, his need still prominent. But hers surpassed it. "Too late for that now," she told him, only to get a harder, shorter thrust in response. Her toes curl up inside her boots, the pleasure and thrill and sweetly stinging warmth filling her along with a heat that lanced up her belly and spread down through her legs. Clara sighed, mixing his name in with the long, low breath.

"Later, then," he said, grunted it more like, his lips finding the bare part of her shoulder where the blouse didn't quite cover. Malcolm pressed his teeth into the faintest bite, alternating it swiftly with a kiss. Both of his hands were on her waist, fingers gripping tight, holding Clara still despite the force of every thrust. It was hard to keep quiet but she managed with a tremendous force of will, letting out only a few indecently loud mewls that he quickly silenced with his lips, his kisses suddenly tender.

Clara listened to his breath as the minutes passed, focusing on the way it hitched and caught, working out of sync with her own. She spied him glancing into the mirror just as often as she was, the pair of them fascinated by _watching _what they were doing as well as actually, well, _doing_ it.

_Phrasing, _Clara told herself, just as a shudder rippled up her back and made her hiss, clinging harder to him, tightening around him as she felt herself coming closer to the edge. His thrusts were longer now, steadied, measured, almost indecently languid. This appreciative thought occurred along with a sudden cold panic that almost threw Clara out of the mood.

_Someone will catch us. Someone will fix the camera and will see what we're doing and it'll be all over the news, the papers, ruining him, ruining _us_ –_

Her eyes were clamped shut, tightly locked. _This was an awful idea, _she thought, chewing on her lip as another shudder moved through her.

"Hey," Malcolm said, his voice soft. Clara felt the tip of his nose move over her cheek, a caress so soft and so unexpectedly sweet that she couldn't help but look at him, shocked. "I love you," he said, catching her once more off guard.

In the silence that followed, Malcolm made sure to press his advantage with a series of quickening thrusts. His breath hastened with his pace, his gaze growing hazy, but he kept his eyes on Clara and her face, narrowing on the way her lips formed a little _o _between every gasp and pant.

"You love _this_," Clara said, teasing him, pushing her fingers up to pull at the back of his hair. Not hard enough to hurt, but certainly hard enough to make him _feel _it. Malcolm hissed, showing his teeth. This sight and sound, combined with the feel of him inside, moved Clara back to the edge again, closer, ever closer. She could feel her body trembling.

"No," he argued, keeping his voice quiet, the words flowing into her ear as he savored the moans of her impending orgasm. "No, you've left off the best bit."

She moaned his name, unable to ask the question she would have preferred to say. Malcolm read it on her face all the same and, as expected, waited until she came to answer it.

"I love doing _this _with _you_," he said, and he pressed his teeth against her bottom lip, biting harder than he had yet. Clara was almost limp against him, her arms trembling, her thighs starting to burn from keeping them clamped as hard as they'd been these past few minutes.

Clara stretched her neck up, craning her head to whisper in his ear. "_Likewise_," she said, savoring the sound of his moan, his gasp, the way he stiffened, as always, just before the end. She considered it quite the victory that he said her name in his loudest moan yet. It rose up from the depth of his throat and out his lips, filling the lift and the silence that followed.

* * *

><p>They were strangers when they parted ways minutes later. Malcolm, having almost miraculously unjammed the buttons by applying the same amount of pressure to the lit up little plastic nubs, settled into that professional mask Clara pitied so much. Even with this disguise in place, he kept his eyes on her as she shifted a little further away from him.<p>

"Just getting prepared," Clara mumbled, trying out a smile. She knew he wouldn't return it, but the lack of one in response made you feel vaguely sad even so.

The lift _dinged _as it stopped at the ninth floor. Just before the doors opened, inviting whoever's been waiting ever so patiently for it to arrive, Clara glanced over at Malcolm, unable to resist. "We're doing this again next week," she said, the words spilling out fast. And he has no time to answer because the doors were open and someone was now walking into the lift, someone who really should not hear the end of the conversation.

Clara stepped out, her head raised, chin lifted, eyes pointed forward, thinking to make for the stairs and take the long way out. It would help her get steady on her feet again. Her knees were still knocking just a bit, and it was really quite a miracle she was able to stand at all after a shag like that.

To Clara's surprise Malcolm left the lift with her, hurrying to keep up. It wouldn't take him long to pass her what with his long, steady strides. Whatever it was he wanted to say had to be done quickly, so as not to drawn attention.

Out of the corner of his mouth he hissed, "In the cupboard next time." And he paused long enough to catch her agreeing smile. She winked, and headed off home. It wasn't quite an apology but Clara forgave him all the same.


	4. The Anniversary

**Notes:** You guys are way too kind about this fic, seriously. Consider this quick update a token of my gratitude.

* * *

><p><strong>The Anniversary<strong>

A strange little miracle happened on the day of Clara and Malcolm's anniversary: Malcolm actually didn't have to work – but she did.

"They can cope without you for one fuckin' day, can't they?" he asked over breakfast. His tone was light, a groundless complaint on the surface alone, but one glance was all Clara needed to see the heaviness alert in his eyes. It tugged at her heart like a hand clawing from the undertow, eager for help.

Clara almost thought that the look he gave her was imploring, but that sounded dangerously close to the idea of _begging_ – and Malcolm certainly does not beg. Even when she had him on his knees, in every sense of the phrase, the most to which Clara could reduce him were quietly phrased demands. At the very least a "please" was used in those situations. Clara didn't ask for much more than that.

"No, Malcolm, they can't," she said, her answer succinct, the tone precise and clipped like her steps as she paced around the kitchen, gathering her mobile, a pocket-sized bottle of hand lotion (the weather made her skin peel mercilessly), and a few pens. When she looked up at Malcolm, Clara made sure her smile was charming as she could stand to make it be. "Can you?" she fired back.

His glare might have made a weaker person shrink back in fear, but it never reached that point with Clara. She didn't know if she was brave or simply stubborn, but whatever combination it was allowed her to look Malcolm dead in the eye no matter what attempt at a temper he displayed and stand her solid, sure ground. It helped that Malcolm's rages, prolific as much as they were foul, profound as they were pitiful, never encompassed her in any scope of blame. It helped to stare straight on into the heart of that pain, knowing that even if she couldn't prevent the damage, then she could at least try to lessen the pain. Any emotion Malcolm showed, however wretched, weak, or unrefined, was something Clara cherished and encouraged without a word. However painful it was, she couldn't deny that she felt it was an honor to be so trusted.

Malcolm was still scowling when Clara paused at the front door, freeing her hair from the collar of her coat and combing out the strands until they were evenly parted over both of her shoulders. Malcolm watched her button up and do a quick last minute check in the mirror by the door, still saying nothing. He didn't need to say anything; his disapproval was written across his face.

Clara turned and gave his cheek a little pat, smiling as he flinched away from her touch only to lean into it within the same second. It wasn't that he didn't like being touched, Clara knew that for a fact, but she also knew that whatever had Malcolm so tense this morning, making his nerves come undone in a tangled raw web, was also making him sensitive to physical contact. _Almost as if he needs it and doesn't want to admit it – but there it is, regardless._

For the smallest, slightest of moments, Clara considered calling in sick that day. She considered any excuse, no matter how cheap, to get out of work and keep her indoors with him. Not just because Malcolm clearly wanted her here, but because –

"You know it's our anniversary, yeah?" he asked her.

Clara pulled back her hand as if burned. Malcolm hadn't stopped scowling but his eyebrows lowered, separating from their once knitted position. It was the closest thing Malcolm had to a neutral, calm expression. She cursed silently to herself, examining him. As shameful as it was to admit, Clara hadn't expect Malcolm to mention it. Not like this.

"Yeah, I know," she said breezily, but on the inside she was steeling herself. Shoulders back and chin raised, eyes focused entirely on him, Clara forced herself to hold strong. "But I also know I can't miss today just because my husband frowns and asks," she said, imitating his expression to the best of her ability. It helped that she had a nice set of eyebrows herself. "I'm a teacher, Malcolm. I have a responsibility to my students – _you_ know that, right?"

"I do know that. I know that because you've fuckin' told me about it. I can actually retain information about your life, sweetheart."

"Then you know already that my work's important to me," Clara said, her voice as sharp as her tongue. "And I don't remember ever having to talk to you like this when _you_ go to work and miss time with me."

It was the truth, and he knew it was the truth. That he wouldn't contest this argument or even laugh was both a relief and a sharp point of sadness that stung Clara's heart. She watched Malcolm carefully, waiting to see a smirk or a little sarcastic snort or shake of the head. She geared up for him to dismiss the blow that she laid on him, but he didn't. He did none of these things. Worse still, he was nodding, his eyes dropping for the smallest of seconds before they lifted back up and pinned onto her gaze.

He was agreeing with her, and yet the conversation was coming dangerously close to an argument. There was no fury present between the two of them, but neither one were prepared to back down from the points they were so keen to make. Clara knew she had a leg to stand on, but she wasn't sure where Malcolm stood at all.

_He wants something – no he _needs _something, _Clara thought again, staring at him_. _But until he actually said what it was, she would only be left in the dark, groping endlessly for the little switch to break through the shadows.

Clara wouldn't make him say it. She knew from experience that words pried from an unwilling heart and mind leave the worst wounds behind. Best wait until he was ready to speak – she would want him to do the same in the reverse scenario.

_But that doesn't mean I can't give him a little prod in the right direction._

The last thing Clara wanted was to leave with an argument still polluting the air. The last thing she wanted was to turn her back when he had such a distant, bitter look on his face. Clara started talking again, not to make peace but to be understood.

"It's important to me," she said again, "And... I know this is odd to say, but I'm actually important to them. So I might complain here and there about having to teach _at _a sea of blank faces instead of _to_ and _yes_, there's still that group of girls who call me Moon-Face Ozzie but they're children and you can't let them see your fear. Frustration, I mean. It's all part of a job, and it's a job I happen to like. I like being there. I like being useful. And I like getting out of the house. … I'm sorry."

Something about this choice of words made Malcolm's eyes tighten, and he looked for a second as if he were about to speak – but it passed. He nodded again. "That's how you feel, then?" he asked.

"It is."

Malcolm offered what could be a quick smile, but it was gone before she could recognize it as anything more than a smirk. Her smile was fixed in place, sincere and determined to inspire in Malcolm one of his own.

"Hey, chin up. Shouldn't be too bad, having a whole day to yourself. Try to relax a little," she said, giving his arm a warm, steady pat. "Spoil yourself today. You haven't had a day off in a while."

"Fair point," he said, nodding again as if he had to process this bit of information. "I have been meaning to indulge myself in a mid-morning wank and then openly lament the state of the human fuckin' condition as presented on Strictly. Maybe they'll have a Charleston set to Morrissey's _You Have Killed Me, _and I'll finally know all the joys that can come from staring into the shit-spewing abyss."

Clara worked very hard not to laugh at this telltale, well adored bit of Malcolm drama. She darted up on the toes of her chunky heeled shoes, giving Malcolm's cheek a warm, slow kiss. He leaned in to the caress, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. He kissed her forehead once in return.

"Strictly airs on Saturdays," she whispered in his ear, before taking a step back. "Remember? You were watching it while I graded my essays last week."

Malcolm laughed, all false cheer and pasted-on grin, but he winked at her as she opened the door. The sight of it gave her heart and courage, enough to take her through the day. The almost argument had passed, storm waters cleared, but the truth still left Clara a little shaken.

She liked being needed. She liked Malcolm needing her. She didn't like having to turn that need away, even if it was a thoroughly practical thing to do.

"Don't make too much of a mess," she said, putting on her best teacher's voice, the one that often came before the threat of lines and detentions. "And try to have a nice day."

Malcolm was at the door, ready to close it behind her. He didn't say a word. Clara turned at the top step and reached back, pulling on the front of his robe until he was leaning down to match her height, in range to kiss again. She made this one last longer than the one before, her lips firmly pressed against his.

"I'll be home soon," she said. Then she paused. "Sort of soon. Somewhat. Just pretend."

"How 'bout we do lunch?" he said, with just the faintest rise in tone. Almost a question, certainly not a plea.

It was Clara's turn to wink at him. "We'll see. … Love you." She felt comfortable saying it here and now due to the occasion. Anniversaries didn't often happen to Clara – not in ways that mattered. Teenage relationships barely counted as far as she was concerned, and there wasn't much by way of romance in her twenties to count as remarkable. It wasn't until the tail end and the lead off of her thirties did someone come along that finally mattered.

_And here I am, working on the one day of the year I probably shouldn't. The one day of the year that matters most to that fact._

"Love you too," Malcolm said after a pause. His voice was lost among the noise of traffic at her back and the distant hum and grind of yard-work further down the road. Clara knew his reasons for saying it were aligned with her own. Anniversaries of any important caliber didn't just happen to Malcolm, either.

And then she understood why he was so tense over breakfast, why he bared and then hastily repaired the raw bundle of nerves that followed him from the bedroom down into the kitchen. She understood why he was so prickly when he bid goodbye at the door – she understood exactly why he flinched and froze on the word "need."

Because he needed her today. He needed her every day. But no matter how much this need thrived inside, he couldn't deny that work came first above all things, even a marriage.

Clara's heart broke and repaired with every step that took her away from home, but she was determined to carry on. _You have to. You must. And you know in your heart that Malcolm does as well. _It was part of the promise they made, the pair of their hands and eyes locked, hearts newly bound together.

"_I will love you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together." _Those had been part of his vows, a more traditional, straightforward confession that was no less true despite the lack of originality. So what if they had a quickie wedding at the courthouse? That didn't stop the newly christened Mr. and Mrs. Tucker from saying their vows together when they met up again later, reciting the old and inventing their own vows together, along with all other sorts of bedroom hymns.

This undeniable fact sustained Clara up til lunch – and then all the way through it. She couldn't possibly spare the time needed to head home like she wanted, and for a moment she was glad that she didn't promise Malcolm that she would come back. _You didn't give your word so you have nothing to break, _she said, her thoughts as bitter as the taste in her mouth_._

Malcolm was as understanding as Clara expected him to be, teasing her just a little as she rang off and sent her love and well wishes for a presumably delicious, now solo, lunch. But Clara knew him better than that. Clara knew his moods, even when they weren't presented in a range of ever-frustrated expressions ready to clear away with a kiss or a kind word, or even a playful push. There was more heart in Malcolm's voice than even he could often realize, so Clara knew right away that his humor hid his true disappointment.

"Their menu finally improved, has it?" he asked. "Better than what I've got on? Don't bother saying yes; you're a wonderful liar, sweetheart, but I know what goes in those fuckin' lunches. Had to help write up the speech to explain away gutting all those kiddies of their school-appointed nutrients."

"Yeah, you asked me to proofread it, remember?" Clara fired back. "And no, it's not that. I just won't make it back there in time to come back here. Might as well stay."

"Might as well," Malcolm repeated.

Her guilt about having to skivv off lunch didn't last long before it hardened into a vexed, inflexible lump, sitting hard in her stomach like lead. _He doesn't get to be angry. He doesn't get to be disappointed, either._ _Not now, not after everything I've put up with til now. _His work intervened with nearly every element of their lives. Sometimes she saw herself less as the wife and more as the other woman in Malcolm's life, hidden and tucked away carefully on the side lest she run the risk of being discovered. But the thought was too bitter, too cruel, and Clara knew there was no heart in it. She knew it wasn't what she honestly believed.

And Malcolm didn't believe it, either. She knows this because she knows _him_. And the Malcolm she left at home that day would rather have her in the end, even if the Malcolm that headed off to work would and often has chosen almost everything else in his life over her. That's why she pitied him, and loved the other. That was why it was so hard when they had to change places even if it was only on this day. This day of all days.

Clara put her face in her hands as she sat at her desk, the mobile sitting in front of her, the screen black as pitch. _Malcolm's home and here I am, _she thought. It was a miserable miracle indeed.

No one at Coal Hill knew who Clara was married to, a secret she and Malcolm both knew was kept not for shame but for sensibility's sake. She sometimes doubted they even realized she _was_ married, truth be told. Sometimes a few of her fellow teachers will pass their eyes over her ring, but the simple golden band (chosen in place of a fancier, flashier gem) soon faded from their attention when she left their field of view. All details that made her a person became far too easy to dismiss since she was no longer an active presence – not because she was shy (she wasn't), or because she didn't talk to her coworkers (she did, and quite a bit), but because what she said was always a deliberately chosen deflection, a means to keep them at bay and pacified with only distorted fragments of truth.

So when the rest of the English department invited her out to dinner as an impromptu sign of literary camaraderie, Clara knew right away that she would say no. There was no love lost between any of them, and she had little interest in establishing any – at least, not right now. She may like her work, as long as it involved the work done in the actual classroom. It was the networking she seemed to have such trouble executing – she always felt too hysterical, too perky, her smiles too forced and efforts too threadbare.

Clara didn't know why she would panic this much about establishing some kind of common ground with her coworkers. The answer wasn't as easily understood as she wanted it to be, only that the mere thought of talking with them and having them understand a part of her the way she had learned to let Malcolm in was as terrifying as all those times she'd gotten lost as a little girl. Clara would rather swallow glass than face such a fear again.

"Sorry, I can't," she'd said, pulling her best regretful expression, half mixed with a smile so as not to look impolite. "I've got a... a thing."

"Oh come on," they jeered, not keen to hear a no for an answer.

"Really, I shouldn't. I have to get home. I'm needed for – something."

Clara waited for them to press further, to ask why so she could finally, proudly declare the reason she was turning them down. She _wanted _them to know who she was choosing over them. Clara _wanted _them to know that she could not only manage the stressful, often thankless job of being an educator, but she could do it on a day as important as when she married the only man she'd ever loved. It wasn't her ego that demanded to reveal such a thing – not _entirely._ No, it wasn't just her ego that required this confession to be revealed, but her heart.

"_I can have both," _Clara wanted to say. "_I can have a career and more love than any of you bastards could ever hope to have."_

But they didn't care to know that part of her. Only Malcolm had ever shown much interest in that part of her before, however much that thought might make her blush and cringe.

Clara hurried home to see him after giving her coworkers the slip, surprised by the mostly dark house and all signs of abandonment. "Malcolm?" she called out, hearing silence in return.

She headed up stairs, pausing only to drop off her purse and coat on the floor in front of her bedroom door. Malcolm was in bed already, so she knew he was going to have an early start tomorrow. She crept quietly into the room, pausing to peer at the lamp he had left on: it was on her side of the bed.

Malcolm was dozing quietly, one arm beneath his head as a comfortless pillow replacement while the other arm, his left, was stretched out to fill in the space Clara had left behind. The golden ring on his finger caught the light and her eyes as she took a step forward, shrugging out of her dress jacket, letting it fall in a heap on the as she forced herself out of her boots. Clara paused at her side of the bed, prying off the backs of her earrings and putting the little pearls to rest on the nightstand in the little golden ring made by the lamp.

Clara heard Malcolm's breath catch, his low, steady snores breaking off in a tense snap. Looking down at the bed, Clara noticed that he was watching her, his eyes alert, intense. _Can't surprise this man, can I? _Malcolm never did anything by halves. Once he was asleep, he was asleep. That was it. When he was awake, no force alive could hope to coax him back to bed, no matter how much he needed the rest.

As if he could sense this thought, Malcolm let out a low, sarcastic snort and stirred on the bed, propping his head against his hand and watching Clara continue to undress, getting down to the black lace slip he had given as a gift. That was back in their courtship days, when both of them were so eager to impress and seem impressive. Little did either one know how much their genuine, flawed selves were the source of all that admiration fast becoming adoration, the selves they didn't try to be, but wanted so desperately to hide.

_It wasn't even that long ago, _Clara thought, watching Malcolm watch her undo her garters and give either one of her stockings a gentle, insistent tug at her thighs, undoing its static cling. _Not long ago at all – and I'm the one already messing up the anniversaries._

"Could this be considered stripping?" she asked him, lowering her newly bared left leg down so the heel pressed lightly to the floor. She brought up the other leg to stretch out across her side of the bed, bending forward to tug at the nylon tip at the end of her toes.

"It's entertaining, whatever it is," he said. Malcolm pushed himself into a sitting position now, and he reached out to slide his fingers under her heel while the other hand moves up the back of her leg. Using his nails to skim lightly over her skin, Malcolm pulled down the stocking, starting at the top of her thigh, tugging the little slip of nylon over and inside out in one long, fluid gesture.

Cupping his face with both her hands, Clara showed Malcolm her best crooked grin right before she kissed him once, twice. His hands moved quickly at the start of the third, one gripping tightly to her waist, the other sliding over her back up to her neck, his fingers clinging to her hair and giving it a strong, painless tug.

"Missed me?" she teased, knowing he'd say yes – eventually. It might be later, once the two of them were well on their way to sleep with her in the lead. He'd done it before, tugging her gently into his arms and pressing the very edge of his lips against her ear, telling her all that he felt but couldn't quite say when looking her in the face. Clara knew he would do this later, but the answer to her question would be written across his face here and now. The answer would burn in his lips and at the heart of every kiss. It will burn its way beneath her flesh with every stroke and touch of his fingers, setting every nerve alight. _Just like I do for him._

"Fuckin' right I did," Malcolm said, his voice all breath and heat, but the weight of it locked her in place. Her lips paused at his throat, right over the part where his heart beat the hardest. "I did miss you – I always fucking miss you, and you know that. You _know_ that, don't you?"

So it surprised Clara to hear him answer. Her shock came not from the fact that he did answer, but that he did it when she was settling down onto his lap after he had wriggled free of his clothes. The shirt remained and Clara slid her hands beneath it, moving her fingers over his chest and down again, putting her nails into it.

"I didn't go off on a bloody odyssey, Malcolm," she said. "It was just one little day at work, it's not like I was actually _gone for good_."

She trailed her kisses lightly over his throat up to his cheek, but he turned to greet her mouth with his, one arm curling around her waist to pull Clara against his chest. The other hand was cupping her face now, holding her there as her hair spilled over her face and against his cheeks as he lay back, pulling Clara on top of him.

"But you were once. Gone, I mean," Malcolm said. And he kept talking, taking Clara by surprise once again. "There was a time, a long time, when you weren't here at all. Before we ever met. When I was too fucking thick to put a name to what I felt, and I didn't want to try until you showed up." He leaned up to give her a kiss between the rush of his words, all the while his fingers tugged at the straps of her slip, pulling it down to reveal her breasts.

"What'd I have to do with it?" she asked, pressing her knees down on either side of his hips, straddling him. He was hard enough and clearly keen to fuck but she'd rather have an answer before she got into that prolonged pleasure business.

"Had no choice then, did I?" he said, laughing once. It sounded like a gasp. "In you came and there I was, lonelier than I've ever fucking been."

"How could looking at me make you feel lonely?" Clara rested her hands on his chest, over his shirt this time, her fingers hooking together as she make a little cage over his heart. It was beating steadily beneath her hands, thumping hard, pushing blood and heat and life all through him. Malcolm was warm beneath her, soon to be inside her, but his eyes cut through and made her gasp as if cold fingers trailed down the little notches along her back.

"Because before all I wanted was to be left alone," he said. "And then I met you, and I've wanted nothing else since."

It was the lack of cursing that caught Clara off guard again, her heart beating out of time with his, her thighs trembling with the effort of hovering just above him. It wasn't often that Malcolm talked like this – it was even more rare when she was there to witness it. Mostly he would leave the heartfelt confessions to notes or whispers in her ear. For him to say this here, now, at this time, on this day, for the only reason that made sense (_he loves you, dear God how he loves you_) proved one thing and one thing only: He meant it. He meant every word of it.

So there was nothing left to do but to show Malcolm how she felt in return.

With a long, lingering look that he returned with the full force of his stare, the same stare that could make her weak in the knees and moan shamelessly, Clara lowered down and sighed out his name as he entered her. He held onto her hips, steadying Clara as she set the pace and fell into a fast, deep rhythm that Clara knew he could match with ease. And so the two remained, moaning, sighing, whispering, kissing, sometimes even biting if they could hold still long enough for it. With every hard thrust and even more forceful descent, Clara couldn't help but think that this here, this moment shared with this heartbreaking, raw, and sharp-tongued man beneath and within her, so safely at home inside her heart, was a far better miracle than anything she could have hoped to have. It might not have been a perfect anniversary, but it was the better than they had been expecting.


	5. The Run In

**Notes: **Since this is an AU, I've adjusted Clara's backstory. Not much is different; only a few minor adjustments to her personal history. The chapter elaborates on it a bit. Thanks for sticking with the fic, everyone. I'm really flattered there's a bunch of people liking it so much! Your reviews are so adorably enthustiastic and supportive, especially since this fic is beyond the usual realm of things I write (which is often angsty and dramatic, but very rarely is it a developed romance continuing throughout chapters, heh). Enjoy this gratuitously long chapter.

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><p><strong>The Run In<strong>

The wind howled, and the chill it brought bit with the full murderous intent of freezing Clara and Malcolm long before they could arrive at their destination: Henry's Cafe, a local little place bound to fail because it lacks a brand name. At least that's what the neighbours say. Their pessimism isn't exactly catching, though it had taken Clara a little while to make good use of their tip. The backlog of homework to grade, paper topics to finalise, and extracurricular activities to supervise reached a critical mass that even made Malcolm pause to take notice.

"Kiddies making you mental?"

"The _kiddies _are on top form – for once. It's their teacher who can't get her act together."

"Well how d'you think they got in line? Because you fuckin' set them there. And now you're exhausted from having to shunt them around like a herd of cats but the miserable, thankless process doesn't end."

"I enjoy my work, remember? That would be your job, Malcolm. That would be your job and whatever its version of schoolchildren are."

"MPs," he said. And even Clara had to laugh at that.

It was both the neighbourly hedge conversation and Malcolm's realisation of her exhaustion that led Clara to finally pitching the idea of heading out to the cafe. A bit late, but at least it's happened. Better late than never, and other such trite maxims.

Malcolm didn't bother with the neighbours much for obvious reasons. Sometimes Clara talked to them when they caught her walking from her car up to the front door. She didn't want to be rude and ignore them, but she didn't want to offer more than a simple, breezy hello either.

Clara was not exactly a perky, cheerful social creature. She played on at work, and years earlier when she was a student, but there was little honesty to the art and more effort made to the artifice. Which wasn't to say she didn't know how to get along with others. She could carry a conversation when required, and she knew how to charm and joke and cooperate with ease out of simple necessity, and not necessarily because she enjoyed it. This thought went doubly so for the neighbours she gained since moving in with Malcolm a few years back, a mere two months before the marriage. Clara knew there was very little she could offer her neighbours that might engender an actual friendship.

_Who actually am I, anyway?_ Such a deeply rooted question that fast approached existentialist levels of angst, but Clara didn't mean it as anything more than an expression of incredulity. _Who am I? The hidden Mrs. Tucker, not even allowed to change her name for fear of the press getting wind. The only child of the Oswalds, whose marriage was as short-lived as it was genuine. _Clara's mother passed away when she was nine, taking most of her father's heart with her, and much of her daughter's, too. It would be a while before Clara noticed this lack and loss: some time around her father's second marriage in fact, when she found she had hardly enough love to scrape together to be happy for her father and Linda.

To be less than diplomatic about it, and without exploring details that made Clara's temper dangerously close to boiling over, Linda was a poor choice on her father's part. It was a choice that Clara saw no right to judge and little opportunity to speak about, considering how little she and her father spoke these days. They made a profoundly unremarkable couple whose marriage seemed to linger not out of dedication but a habit too insignificant to break.

"A divorce would call more attention to the marriage than it deserves," Linda had said to a friend last Christmas, not knowing Clara was within earshot just beyond the pale grey smoke swirling from the end of their cigarettes. Clara laughed as she told Malcolm about it later as they were driving home, wondering all the while why he wasn't joining in. She stopped wondering when the tears started to fall, first as broken, uneven dripping and then a wretched stream. He'd held her hand the rest of the way home, not saying a word.

But Clara couldn't let it pass without some attempt at a solution. They were all adults here, and so what if Clara was the technical child of one and the literal offspring of the other. _All the more reason to step in to help when it's family on the line._

"I'll come 'round to her," her father said in response to a rather serious question Clara asked after telling him what Linda had said. "Comin' round's almost as good as loving, Clara. That's all a lot of us can hope for. If you can't love 'em at least try to like 'em, dear." She'd never brought it up again.

Apart from this particularly grim backstory, Clara can't think of much else about her life that would interest her neighbours. It's not that Clara didn't want their friendship, she just wasn't sure what they'd do with it once it started. What face to wear when they talked, and how much and how well should she hide the rest? All Clara had to her credit was a prevailing interest in gardening (rubbish) and internal floral decorating (promising – Malcolm let her have an entire mantle upon which to set up her silk arrangements). She knew the old woman down the way would let her in on a few of her secrets should Clara ask, but she couldn't quite bring herself to bother the woman for advice. She, like all the others on the block, seemed to be well-meaning, well-off, well above average with just enough wealth and just enough happiness and just enough ignorance to coast through life unmolested by its more thorny snarls.

_But that's me being unfair._ They were at least kind enough not to pry too deeply into her and Malcolm's lives, knowing only that she kept semi-regular hours while her husband was a man more often heard than seen, a disembodied, foul-mouthed phantom. This distance hadn't stopped them from recommending the shop to her. "Tea just like home in there," they promised.

How could Clara resist? Taking a solo trip there earlier in the week to check it out, Clara knew from the start that Henry's was just the place for her. She liked the atmosphere, the choice in music (low and unobtrusive, as opposed to more high traffic places that blared god awful music at high tones from speakers hidden in the ceiling). She even liked the décor: the mixture of earthy brown and deep red reminded her of the flat she used to have before she got married. _Like Jane Eyre's red room, only without the lingering mental trauma and possible ghost of a wronged relative._

Taking a look at the menu up on the walls proved promising. Clara was impressed by the variety as well as the cleverness of the names which had all taken on a pre-Christmas holiday pun. There was even a cafe cat who lurked around, taking the best cushioned chairs for herself when she wasn't glaring out the window, a displeased, fluffy sentinel. All in all it was a charming place for a couple to go on a date, as long as they still cared about that sort of thing, and when she went home later that day she suggested it to Malcolm as a casual, passing comment.

"Do we care about that? Did we?"

"Do we not?" she asked in return.

Malcolm considered this. "Well, how's the coffee?"

"Brilliant. Better than yours."

"Don't lie now, it's a terrible habit to start."

"Hark who's talking," Clara had said, winking and slipping her arm through his to show she meant no harm. She didn't hear a word about the cafe until today.

Today was another rare day off, one in a chain for both her and Malcolm. His was compulsory, hers only because of a surprise gas leak. So of course they decided to spend these days together without actually telling the other one that's what they decided. Like Malcolm, Clara hoped he would just pick up on how much she preferred his company over all other options (forced family visits, outings with still-lingering school friends, the personal seclusion that the little green slab of a backyard offered). Like Malcolm, Clara hoped this preference could be understood without needing to be said. Putting it into words would cheapen the emotion somehow, diluting it from a pure need into a simple uttered expression.

Let love be known, and let it be felt – but don't demand that it be said. _Love and be silent, eh, Cordelia?_

Clara woke up that morning pleased to find Malcolm still there with her, one arm draped around her waist, the other hooked and folded under his pillow, giving it a bit of a boost. Clara smiled to herself and nestled in closer under the blankets. His chest was as flush against her back as the position allowed, and when she shifted, drawing herself into a smaller knot of legs and bent knees, he moved closer, surrounding her. Clara dozed off like this, toasty and snug with the combination of his body heat compounding with the heavy blanket and the thermostat kicking in.

Malcolm woke her up a few minutes later, moving his stubble-coated cheek against the back of her neck after brushing her hair aside in quick, swift strokes. She hissed and flinch at this rude awakening. Of course it didn't hurt, but it surprised her out of a rather nice reverie. Malcolm held on all the tighter, and Clara could feel him shaking with laughter.

Clara swatted his hand for that bit of cheek. "Stop that," she murmured, tapping his hand a few more times for good measure, hoping to hear that laughter continue.

"Not a chance," he said.

"It's bothering me."

"Thought you liked this unkempt mess of facial hair. Said I should keep it."

He wasn't wrong – but he wasn't right, either. His beard hadn't exactly reached sandpaper quality yet, and as Clara _had_ told him quite recently how much she liked him scruffy and dishevelled, along with how comfortable he looked when dressed "incognito," this method of waking her up didn't bother her too much. It was the self-loathing buried beneath the joke that twisted her heart.

Hearing Malcolm go on at length about how he looked – "Like a cross between a fucking charity case and the funny uncle everyone hides the cooking sherry from" – made Clara sadder than she wanted to admit. She knew her husband could be vain, but not vain enough to be fully conceited to the point of Narcissus incarnate. Malcolm at least looked _up _from the reflection from time to time. It never frustrated Clara to see him take pride in his appearance and she knew he had a fair bit of pride too, but not enough to let it reach insufferable levels. Not like the kind that had her walking on eggshells every time she paid her father a visit.

Linda came to mind, and then promptly left it with a tremendous force of Clara's will. She didn't want her step-mother and her husband to occupy the same time frame of thoughts. There was little ground of comparison for them, for start. Linda was the type of person who would thrive in the sort of atmosphere that made Malcolm ache without a sound, the way poison could nourish rather than torment those accustomed to the vitriol. And Malcolm was... different. He was very different.

As Clara lay there in bed, suppressing laughter and frustrated tuts at the continued itchy assault of Malcolm's scritchy cuddles, she laid the thought out for her to better understand. Malcolm had long since known and grown accustomed to both his value and the scope of his power when it came to his job. He knew the value and power that went into the mask and the life he had let cultivate inside him over years of cultivating media spin – and he hated it. He hated it as much as he needed the power and the mask and the vanity to succeed and thrive. The more it grew, the more it could pass as a believable farce in the eyes of others. Even to himself.

So when Clara had admitted to liking him in all these various states and faces, even the unsightly one – him as he was beneath it all, dressed down, unshaven, tousled and delightfully rumpled, almost pre-human before a cup of coffee found its way into his system – her heart broke to see Malcolm laugh. He laughed long enough for her doubts to start creeping in, not because it hurt her feelings – she had developed tougher skin years before Malcolm arrived, and thank the stars for it – but because his own feelings were clearly so diminished by none other than himself.

"I'd say that's almost a deliberate misunderstanding," she said archly, rolling her eyes. Clara knew he couldn't see her, so she shifted her head to shoot a side-long glare over her shoulder. Malcolm looked down the length of his nose at her, offering an impishly charming grin in exchange for Clara's dour stare. After a moment the position became too uncomfortable to hold. She pushed away from Malcolm, turned to face him, lowering down on the too tempting warmth of his arms.

With her head on his chest, listening to the sounds of him breathing and his heart beating steadily, Clara said, "I said I liked it on _you_. I didn't say I liked it on me."

Malcolm heaved a little laughing sigh. "That's good to hear. And it's good of you to say it first – I was starting to wonder about your chin," he said, running his fingers underneath it in a touch light enough to tickle without quite committing to the deed.

Clara squirmed and held in a laugh of her own. "Don't you _dare_."

"And how's that upper lip?" he asked, holding her chin, offering that still charming smile when she lifted her head off his chest to glare at him. His fingers are long enough to allow the bulk of them to cup her chin while the thumb strayed up, running the tip of his finger over her top lip. "God, that's a fucking moustache in the making."

"Shut up, it is not," was all Clara managed to say in response, taken in by the look he gave her shortly after the comment was made, captivated by the way his thumb was still tracing the edge of her lips, following the length of her fast-growing smile. Clara didn't want to admit to herself that she was quickly approaching breathlessness, but she was utterly hopeless in that regard. It could still take Clara by surprise sometimes, the impact of just how much she loved him. Little moments like this laid the emotion bare and let it thrive in the open light before necessity required its burial again. Some things were too tender to show. Malcolm knew this just as well as her.

The loud grumbling of their stomachs was what got them out of bed and on their way to Henry's cafe. If it weren't for that, Clara thought that she and Malcolm were all set and content with the idea of sleeping in for a full day. _It was a nice day for it: rain, rain, and more rain. And not an ark in sight._ The rain held out long enough for them to come within range of the cafe; and they were only a few steps away when the downpour began in full, soaking Clara down past her coat, skirt, and tights within seconds. Cursing under her breath, she darted inside the cafe and held the door open for Malcolm to follow. He was uncharacteristically silent, letting Clara be the one to send out the stream of complaints.

As he listened, Malcolm brushed some of the rain off Clara's shoulders, nodding along to her half-hearted protests about a raincoat and all its design purposes failing in this one crucial hour. His eyebrows lifted, his mouth quirked into that smirk she loved. It was an unguarded smile, a true smile – the smile he showed only to her and her alone.

_But I'm still cross. And I've a right to be. _"I mean it, you'd think a fair bit of weather resistance would go into the making of this damn coat," she said, laughing under her breath as Malcolm's hands moved from one shoulder to the next. His touch lingered long enough to be felt beneath the layers of clothing, but not long enough to call attention to itself. She couldn't help but notice how his warmth was apparent even through the chill. It was that fast metabolism of his; it never rested, never failed. Clara often said he generated enough heat to make her flush-faced from physical acts no more strenuous than simple spooning.

"Doesn't stop you from dripping all over the place," Malcolm said. For a horrible second Clara wondered if she'd repeated the thought out loud – but no, he was talking about the coat.

_Hold it together, girl. _"You're the one adding to the mess," she said, grabbing his hand to pull it off her shoulder. She pressed her fingers against his palm, holding on as tightly as she could. His fingers, long and thin, engulfed hers, hiding every single one with a simple fold.

It's a small thing, really. But the small thing itself was a miracle. These days off have done Malcolm a world of good. He was more relaxed than he had been in a long while, and she marvelled at how it had taken only a matter of days to undo the tension and deeply-embedded fury that work has buried within him for years. He almost smiled, and she was already smiling – and then a voice said, "_Malcolm_?" in very much the same tone a person used when they discovered a secret that amused more than it horrified.

_Like Linda when she first met Malcolm, _Clara thought, her mind landing on her step-mother twice in one day. It was more energy given to the woman than Clara had expended on her for almost a year. Her one comfort was that there was little chance this person was Linda – the voice belong to a man for one thing. This was the voice of a person who thrived on the misfortune he could both witness and create, the way a parasite invaded an already weakened host. Even _Linda _wasn't that bad – just wretched.

Clara could tell at once that Malcolm already knew who this person was. The look he showed her before he turned in response to the voice was a familiar one – familiar and far from dear. It was the look Clara saw when his mask sealed in place every morning. And once again all Clara could do was watch, a wordless witness to his discomfort.

A shiver ran down her back. Perhaps it was a raindrop straying where it ought not to be, but Clara thought it was more likely the tone of voice Malcolm used when he answered back. Clara had never heard him sound so restrained and yet so thunderously savage, and all he had said was just one word. A name.

"Ollie."

For a second Clara wanted to joke or say something to break the awful, obvious tension that had built up within seconds, a line of fire stretching between Malcolm and whoever this Ollie person was. She knew this was a defence mechanism of hers, this tendency towards making peace. Nothing more than an impulse she had cultivated into a nervous, strained habit, one Clara would like to drop flat and leave abandoned. She was old enough to have stopped trying to play nice in scenarios that didn't demand her interference, and yet the habit prevailed. _Just one more thing I got from dear old Dad: smile, hold it all together, and keep your heart to yourself. __It was a miracle neither one of them had an ulcer yet._

Clara took one look at Malcolm and his rigid expression, his eyebrows closing over the stinging, chilling glare, and in a heartbeat she made up her mind. _I won't do it. I won't play nice – at least, not as much as I would if Malcolm weren't here_. He might not know it yet, but Malcolm's simple presence acted as a wordless, unintentional encouragement for Clara to drop the mask and get rid of the lie that lived far too long inside: that Clara was sweet, little, perky, and oh so kind. It was the sight of his anger that freed her.

This was just one more reason she so cherished and admired Malcolm. He might be many things, a skilled liar prominent amongst them, and Clara knew that not all of these things were kind, but he had never been a doormat. Never learned how to be, and could never be expected to manage such a gutless, spineless obsequity. Clara liked to think Malcolm knew why she had this habit that one might crudely define as being an incessant control freak. What he knew about her family was surely enough of a breadcrumb trail to lead him to some bit of understanding. Clara always hoped his lack of judgement was because he knew she wasn't really like that beneath it all, that she didn't want to have this placid eternal victim as her public mask, similar to how she hoped he knew that she was well aware of the shame that went into his own daily disguise.

The man – Ollie – tapped his fingers against the table, looking between Malcolm and Clara in a quick, curious sweep. He was quite interested in how Malcolm was dressed, along with the obvious traces of facial hair on his cheeks and chin, but his small eyes lingered longer on Clara's face. She could feel herself smiling, an automatic, forced expression, the way a doll's mouth was painted on. Even seconds after her promise the habit still remained.

Ollie seemed to enjoy this moment, and the whole run-in specifically, but Clara wasn't exactly sure why. She also wasn't sure if she wanted to know what a man like Ollie found amusing in the first place, especially since it seemed to have sparked a wordless fury inside of Malcolm.

It was not long before Ollie pointed at Clara, leaning back in his chair as he turned his attention once again to Malcolm. "So, who's this?" he asked.

Clara's smile slipped. _What sort of man talks about a woman as if she's not even there – and defaults the question to another man, no less?_ It doesn't take Clara long to answer her own question. _This man does that, _she thought, looking Ollie over quickly. Curly hair, ruddy cheeks, glasses. _Unctuous, self-assured, the sort of person who exists to be humbled and shot down at every turn presented. _If he was anything like the sort of people Malcolm dealt with every day, it was no wonder he was so damn vicious as a general rule. Only a few moments with Ollie had reduced Clara to a mere shred of impatience. She just hoped this Ollie bloke didn't have any _real _power.

Looking at him again, Clara felt comfortable in assuming a man like Ollie didn't have any ultimate significance. Not really. He was not the sort of man who could on occasion take command, but the truth of it all – the truth he didn't want to accept – was that he was the sort of man who thought he had more value than he rightly did. It was something about his face, something about the air that hung around him, like a weakness of character that raised an almighty stink. Clara prided herself on being an astute reader of others. It helped her know how little to say around them, and how many lies to tell.

Before Malcolm could answer in what would no doubt be an explosion of mouth-frothing ferocity, Clara stepped forward, pulled out the chair across from Ollie, and sat down. She held out her hand for him to take, making sure to smile again – but it was a different smile this time. Something about it made Ollie pause, which gave her courage. Just as intended.

"I'm Clara," she said with the perfect air of politeness, and added on a harmless lie at the end. "Nice to meet you." She shook his hand. It was clammy and weak.

"Yeah... Likewise." Ollie stammered as he watched Malcolm sit down at the nearest empty chair. Malcolm moved with deliberate ease, hands folded one over the other and coming to rest on the table in the little bare expanse of polished oak. His eyes were on Clara's other hand, still squeezing Ollie's. It was hard to read his expression. This, too, felt deliberate.

Clara took a breath and kept her eyes from Malcolm's face. It wasn't easy, nor was it a natural thing since he was looking right at Clara. The weight of his gaze did not hold Clara down, nor did it keep her tongue pinned to the roof of her mouth for fear or nerve's sake. It was a force that encouraged like a warm push or a sharp prod. Did he know he had this power over her? What more could he do if he did?

"Do you know Malcolm well?" Clara asked. She thought of saying _"__My husband," _but she wasn't quite sure if it was right to reveal that yet. _Especially not to someone like this._Malcolm may wear a ring but the way he tells it at both DoSAC and Number 4, not many people have been able to piece this glaring, polished fact together. Apart from Sam, there was only one other person that had been able to guess what the ring meant. His name escaped Clara now, but she knew it definitely was not Ollie. __Greg? No. Glenn?__

"Yeah – well, we er, we work together. So I imagine I do. Thought I did," Ollie said. He isn't stammering now, not quite, but he did so in a way that showed he was gaining speed, gathering together words in a neat little line that didn't always reveal the full extent of his thoughts, but were meant to make others reach out for them. And in reaching they were doing little more than sticking out their neck, revealing more of themselves than they possibly knew.

His behaviour was a lead. Clara knew it was a lead. She had seen Linda do this for years when Clara was a teenager, drawing out words and thoughts from her step-daughter that Clara wouldn't have ever thought to confide if she hadn't thought Linda would be supportive. But the false-front of support was just that: false, a front. And all of Clara's affection had gone misplaced, was nothing more than something for Linda to pick apart and hurl aside, paring Clara down to a smaller, timid size. She continued the habit even now that Clara was an adult and knew better than to seek out Linda's advice. It was usually about the way she lived her life, or how Clara wasn't living it. Linda hadn't found a chance to say much these past few years since she met Malcolm, apart from the first astonished dismissal of the man, but sometimes she managed to get a few cheap shots in. It's what made holidays and birthdays so brutally wretched. "_Met someone yet? What do you mean you're not interested – of course you are, darling, everyone always is. Oh, still together with him, then? Never underestimate a mid-life crisis in men, Clara. You'll know when you get to my age. Chin up, dear. I'm just trying to help. If you lose that sunny attitude you won't have much else left."_

"And what about you?" Ollie asked, his voice drawing Clara out of her thoughtful silence. He glanced quickly at Malcolm, but soon decided his eyes and attention were safer on her. "How do you two know each other?"

Clara looked at Malcolm. Ollie saw her looking and there was some kind of awareness that darkened his expression. It was as if a small bit of understanding descended and a light clicked on as thoughts slid into place.

If it were any other person engaging her in conversation, Clara wouldn't feel nearly as tense and wary as she did here. Not even the comforting air of the cafe could set her at ease: there was far too much in front of her that inspired stress, demanding her attention and the full extent of her emotional dedication. Perhaps it was just her hold-over hatred for that pissant Linda that Clara was projecting onto Ollie that made her feel this way, but there was something about him she just didn't _like_. Clara wanted to know even less about him than she wanted to reveal about herself, and yet she couldn't imagine a way out of the conversation quite yet.

So Clara took a breath and kept her eyes on Malcolm. He wasn't saying anything. His face showed nothing more than a scowl.

Just as Clara started to speak, deciding on a lie to Ollie's question, Malcolm cut her off. "What the fuck do you want?" he asked, his eyes on Ollie.

Ollie looked as if he could cower but he held his ground as well as a reedy thing like him could manage, especially under the sort of look that Malcolm was giving him. "The usual expectation for spending time in a coffee shop is that one plans to drink coffee," he said. "Or I would, if they ever got around to calling my name."

"It's a bit busy. I imagine they'll remember you eventually," Clara said. The storm has kept as many people indoors as the capacity could allow, and there was even a few people who choose to stand and lean against the walls, waiting for tables to open up as they hovered over their drinks for warmth.

Ollie forced a flat, clunky chuckle at this. "Yeah, eventually," he said, shifting his chair closer to the table, edging it just a few paces away from Malcolm. Clara wanted to laugh, but she wasn't sure he did this on purpose or if it was an instinctive thing. Perhaps he just couldn't stand being near Malcolm in any capacity without finding some way to stammer, shrink, and shift away, like an insect who finally learned to shy from a flame.

"So are you two... together?" Ollie asked. "Like an actual normal... couple?"

It was the way he said it that offended Clara, but the shock of the question kept her smile printed on her face, even if her eyes were all but burning in their sockets. Malcolm was a frayed nerve beside her, seething and glaring, well aware of what was implied in the pause and the emphasis, but again it was Clara who made the first move.

"Yes, we are," she said. She put her left hand onto Malcolm's and held it tight, a warning squeeze given as a plea for silence. Clara held on tight enough to make the bones of her hand shift and press against her skin. Still cold from the rain, Clara imagined her fingers were trembling not because of the temper that was rising up to a steady boil but because she was still half-soaked.

She didn't want to get cross - worse, she didn't want to get cross here, now, with this silly awful man to see it happen. At least Malcolm was warm beneath her hand, warm and steady and _there. _That's what mattered.

The movement of her hand, more than her words, had the intended effect. Ollie noticed her wedding ring and his expression of utter disbelief would be hilarious if it weren't needling Clara's patience down to a worn thread. "That's... Well, er. That's something," he said, smiling flat and rigid, wooden. "Congratulations," he added.

"Thank you," Clara said, knowing he didn't mean it. _Just like Linda. "Congratulations, I s'pose. Good luck keepin' him."_

"I didn't know you had it in you to make time for a social life, Malcolm," Ollie said.

"Oh, something you don't know, there's a fucking surprise," Malcolm lobbed back. His voice didn't go any louder than what could pass as a pleasant conversation's tone, but it was clear from the look on his face and the way he was speaking that he would rather swallow glass than be sitting here presently. A few people at a nearby table glanced over and then looked back down to their papers and phones. Some people by the wall behind Ollie perked up, hoping perhaps that whatever row might start would allow them a chance at the impendingly-empty seats.

"It's a fair assumption to make, considering..." Ollie started, but he didn't finish. He looked at Clara again, at her hand still resting on Malcolm's. He was trying not to laugh, Clara could see it in the way he painted his smile on again. Her nails pressed into the palm of her other hand, drawing the fury in. "So how did you two lovebirds meet?" he asked, teasing, mocking, and if they had a playful relationship – or any kind of relationship at all besides the currently standing, absolutely awkward hurdle of leaving and receiving a first impression - Clara supposed she might even enjoy this phrase.

But she didn't enjoy it. Because yes, she did love Malcolm. She was absolutely crazy about him – good god, how mad she was for this man. And yes, she knew he loved her too – perhaps he wasn't _crazy_ about her, but Clara knew for a fact how deeply that affection ran through him._ I've felt it, I've seen it, I've heard it in his whispers and the toneless, silent gasps between each word._ She felt it when he touched her, making Clara's body electric and wild with caresses tame and torrid. She felt it even when his hands were nowhere near her, when it was just his eyes and all the force of them sliding over her like a velvet glove, tracing every ache and path down to the tenderest part of her heart.

Clara loved Malcolm, and she didn't like how this almost stranger called any of that into question. She didn't like the suggestion left dangling in the silence, knowing it was her choice whether to ask him to elaborate, or for her to simply ignore the insult. Both were torments. Both felt a bit like giving in, and Clara didn't want to settle for either one.

When neither Clara nor Malcolm answered – she was trying hard not to spit venom and Malcolm seems equally preoccupied in trying not to spit at all – Ollie continued. "It wasn't a sort of... advertisement or... hotline number, was it?"

Clara heard herself talking before she know she wanted to answer. Both men were staring at her – and for once, they both looked the same: Surprised. Malcolm hid his shock better than Ollie.

"No, see I just happened to pick the same part of Westminster to hurl myself off of as he did, and well, once you're up there you may as well make a friend before the end, right? Only before I knew it, I found out I'd rather be with him than fall and die. So – here we are."

Ollie took all this in for one long, stunned moment. Malcolm did too. There was something about the lie that put a look on his face that damn near broke her heart. It was not a look of hurt, no, it was nothing even close, and certainly nothing to be shown around a man like Ollie. It was some awful kind of love Clara never thought he'd show in public – though now that she had her eyes on him properly, Clara thought it was more fair to say that instead of love, Malcolm was looking at her the same way a man burned for the nearest, dimmest light. However small a flame it was, it was a flame and he'd bend to it, he'd lean to it – he would let it warm him.

For a time. Because the look was gone in the time it took her to blink and look at Ollie again.

"Did you just... make a joke about suicide?" Ollie asked. Clara didn't think he was offended. Not with the look he was giving her, half impressed, half certain he had just heard an off colour joke from the least likely source. He was not quite a deer in headlights, but more like a rodent caught pawing in the rubbish again. It was clear that Ollie was surprised to discover Clara's temper, not necessarily that it existed, but that it could exist to the extent that it does. Clara knew she wasn't yet a match for Malcolm's wrath, but she was far from demure.

"Yeah, it wasn't nice, was it? I take it back, it's far too crass," Clara fired back, not waiting for Ollie to reply. She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward, looking him square in the eye for a long, quiet moment. "But then so's implying I'm a whore. Not exactly nice, is it?"

A few things happened at once. Ollie started to stammer again. Clara didn't think he was going to apologise, she didn't quite care what he wanted to say to come up with a potential alternative. Malcolm sat up straighter, noticing the dagger sharp edge in Clara's eyes, hearing the wrath in her voice – and he smiled. Clara had seldom been mad like this; only once in recent memory had her temper reached the critical mass it was at right now. Unsurprisingly, Linda had been involved then, too.

Malcolm's smile caught Clara off guard. She thought of a man leaning in to a flame again, and she realised with characteristic belatedness just _what _the look he was giving her meant. I_t's desire, you absolute git. He's burning for ___you__. It was the same look he gave Clara in the lift. The same as their anniversary night – the same as any night when he was riveted to her, pivoting every point of his world around her breath and stare and smile.

Clara stood up. The barista called out Ollie's name, as well as the names of the drinks he was waiting for, but he didn't respond to the sound. He was looking at Clara, cheeks near to flushing, not quite embarrassed but certainly stumbling now that she had let out a bit of her ire.

"Well I'd love to stay and talk with you, Oliver – is it Oliver? Hmm. It's such a shame, what parents think they can get away with in a name. I think I've got an Oliver in one of my classes. But anyway, we really ought to go."

Clara made a show of stepping out of her chair and pushing it against the table. The metal beads on the end of the legs shrieked against the ground just loud enough to be heard over the music. Eyes turned to their table, curious and keen to know more, but Clara's smile was in place again, revealing nothing of the anger alive inside her. She took a breath and held her head up high.

She spared Ollie one more glance, quick and painless, the kind of look that might manage to kill one day. "Sorry to rush. I'm sure you're a treat to have around but I'd really rather lie down in traffic."

"Honestly, that's –" he started to say, but Clara didn't care. She didn't give a damn.

Clara walked over to the counter where the barista set out Ollie's drinks. She picked them up, keeping Ollie's for herself. She passed the second drink over to Malcolm, who had followed her example and left the table just as quickly as she had. He was beaming at Clara with a small, crooked smile, his eyes glinting with pride. She winked at him once before stepping around to pass Ollie, who had just now risen out of his chair.

"Take care!" Clara said, waving at him. "Don't give my husband any trouble, yeah?" Clara opened the door before Ollie could answer. She stepped out into the pavement. Malcolm lingered long enough to glare at Ollie over his shoulder until he left too.

Blowing gently against the steam rising from the slit in the lid, Clara smiled up at Malcolm. "I feel sorry for you," she said.

His eyebrows shifted just a little. The drink was tiny in his hands, the white lid barely visible over the curve of his long fingers. "Why would you?" he asked.

Clara took a sip of whatever drink Ollie bought. She scowled, pulled a face, and chucked the cup into the nearby bin. _Disgusting._ Malcolm handed off his drink, and she caught sight of the barista's scrawl on the side. _Lady Grey, _Twining's blend_. _Yes, that was bound to be far more agreeable. Clara wondered who Ollie bought it for; she couldn't imagine him having a girlfriend, but it might just be for her. _Poor woman._

Clara took a few exploratory sips of the tea and smiled, wetting her lips with the mixture of citrus and sweetness. Malcolm's eyes were on her mouth, so she made a show of drawing out her answer, slipping her arm through his and leading him gently down the pavement back up the road, back towards home.

"Having to put up with a man like that for more than three minutes? Yeah, I think feeling bad's a fair response to have."

"He's relatively harmless," Malcolm said, walking fast. Clara worked to keep up, well aware of how warm he was beside her, well aware of how he was looking at her as if he could burn his gaze into every inch of her skin to trace out the patterns of where his lips would soon be. "He's like a toddler, you know. His primary functions are shitting where he sits and making a lot of loud, disruptive noises that may some day be proper fuckin' words. But that's it."

"Are they all that bad?" she asked. "The others, I mean. Your co-workers or... underlings. Whatever you call them."

_He's going to say yes_, Clara thought. She could sense it, could see the word forming on his lips. And Malcolm was indeed about to say yes – and then something stopped him. Clara wouldn't call it regret, but there was a sort of quiet surprise that took over Malcolm's face, making him laugh in a hollow, wooden way that thankfully didn't last long.

"You know, sweetheart," he started to say, scratching at his nose and smiling down at Clara, "They're not nearly as fucking awful as they could be. Not always. Most of them can be endured."

Clara considered this in silence. "I still wouldn't want to deal with him every day," she said.

"You made that clear," Malcolm said, his voice low enough to be near a purr. _There's that look in his eyes again. _He was proud of what Clara did, of what she said – even if it was horrible and mostly a lie besides.

Clara drank her tea fast, needing the warmth and the sweetness because she was dangerously close to a sharp, nagging sadness that had taken her by surprise. It helped that Malcolm gently dislodged his arm from hers and pressed his hand against the small of her back, slipping it under her coat so that his touch could have its full impact. Fingers flat against her back, just above the waistband of her skirt and the zipper dangling there, Malcolm pressed his hand with just enough of a weight to make her step quicken, every nerve inside her focused on the sensations of that tiny bit of Clara he had under his command. He was possessive in a way that didn't oppress, protective in a way that didn't smother – it was that strange power he had coming back to show itself again. _Twice in one outing, how lucky am I?_

Clara wondered when she would find a way to tell him he had such a hold over her, or if she ever even should. _Might go to his head if I'm not careful. _Malcolm was smart enough to understand the significance of how she craved to be craved by him, how she ached to be vulnerable with him in a way that could only be soothed in his own particular way. Even if he didn't understand it, even if he didn't quite know how the hell she had managed to find a home in him, the home was there. Clara all but said it when they exchanged wedding vows. Malcolm had gone for the traditional recitation but Clara, being Clara, and needing to be as true to herself as she absolutely could stand to be on a day as special as this, had gone for something completely different. She had chosen a bit from a poem, appropriated for her situation.

_"__Some way, some how, can you understand me a little? Love me a little?"_

Clara wondered if one day she would be like that for him, to him. Possessive, protective, the one thing in this world that could bring him to kneel and heel. _Hell, maybe I am already and this is his way of saying it. _It didn't hurt to hope.

The tea was finished long before they arrived back home, the taste of it coating Clara's tongue in a thick, sweet coat. Her key'was in the lock and she shouldered open the door in one swift step, which just barely managed to shut before Malcolm was on her. Quite literally, there he was flat and pressed and bending over her, his hands on her face, lifting it up for a kiss so hard that it made Clara's knees bend.

He was prepared for that; his hands left her face so fast that the warmth quickly faded. Its absence burned, but it wasn't long before he wrapped his arms around her, guiding Clara as gently as he could to the floor.

"The _floor_?" she spat out in between every kiss. Malcolm moved his hands to her front again. His coat was off, the cardigan tugged over his head in that way that men can do – one swift, casual, hasty pull that reveals skin in a trice. It tousled his hair but Clara had little time to enjoy the sight. His lips were on hers again, his tongue slipping inside as he tasted the sweetness that thrived in her mouth.

"The floor," he echoed back in a grunt. Clara had only just started to shrug out of her rain coat, letting it fall out behind her before his hands slipped down her chest and then up under her shirt at the back, reaching for the clasp of her bra. He was getting better at undoing it with one hand.

"Calm down a bit. I'm not going anywhere," Clara gasped as she settled as comfortably as she could considering their location, only to have Malcolm press his hips harder against her, one knee coming up to gently coax her legs to open. Clara's skirt was worked up around her hips and she began to on shimmy out of her 'hose. It was a somewhat slow process what with Malcolm being on top of her, though at least he was helping Clara out of her clothes. But this too was more than a little distracting.

After an awkward few minutes, most of Clara's clothes were now discarded save for her skirt. Malcolm was down to the last layer of his incognito get up – white tee, boxers which she was quick to tug and snap at, biting at his lip when he muttered some kind of pointless protest. Just before they started, Malcolm reached down to hold Clara's face in between his hands again. The kiss was long. It lingered, it burned. Clara shivered not from the cold that pressed in against the windows, seeping in around the edges of the curtains, but from the force of his lips. How could he make her feel so weak when she was already on her back? How much further could she fall than this?

"You were fucking brilliant, you know that?" he asked, his lips grazing over Clara's.

Her eyes snapped open. This was not what she expected to hear. It was not exactly what she wanted to hear, either. "I lied, Malcolm," she said, the words turning her mouth sour. Not even a kiss could salvage it – but that thought came before he moved his lips to her neck, the scruff of his five o'clock shadow tickling her again, making her squirm and arch up with a giggling gasp. "I _lied _and I lied about something awful, and I – _Malcolm_! – I stole too, that's not – that's not brilliant, that's..."

He moved down as she spoke, his mouth closing over her breast. Clara felt the hint of teeth and the flick of his tongue just as his other hand reached down between her legs, feeling her, testing. The noise she made was absolutely indecent, almost appallingly loud. Lucky he was the only one 'round to hear it.

Malcolm moved his attention to her other breast, sliding another finger inside. Every stroke was long, his fingers curling, matching the pace at which he was lavishing attention onto her breast. Clara's fingers curled in his hair, pulling and pushing in equal turns, not quite sure where she wanted his mouth to go next. Three fingers were in her now, as deep as the knuckle, which is when he moved his mouth up to silence Clara's panting gasps with one more kiss. It was hard work keeping her eyes open, but she would rather die than miss the fire in his gaze. He was burning still, burning and bending and leaning to the flame he saw in her. And she was burning for him too, the way that stars can miss their kindred sun when the morning came, fading too fast before they saw him.

"You were good," he said. "You were horrible – and you were good."

He was proud of her. Clara knew it was her temper, this first real peek at it directed towards someone he was clearly less than fond of, that got him so wild and riled. She wanted to laugh but she couldn't quite find the air for it, not with the warmth and flushing rush of pleasure moving through her, making her legs tremble as she planted her heels into the floor and pushed up, meeting every stroke of his fingers. Malcolm watched Clara for a few moments, keeping his touch gentle despite moving in deeper. And then it all abated for a few seconds, long enough for Clara to hiss and start to protest, her teeth clenched, temper flaring up again. He was not going to stop now, no. _I won't let him._

"Don't you _dare_," Clara growled. "You finish it, Malcolm. You started, now finish me. Do it."

"Not goin' anywhere, sweetheart," he said, murmuring Clara's words back to her.

And once he was inside her, Clara wrapped her arms and legs around him. Her body hummed with her own kind of pride. In a matter of minutes, she no longer wondered if she could bring this misleadingly vicious man to kneel. Clara knew now in the moments they shared on the floor, only mere steps from the front door, as the pair of them moaned and grunted all manner of horrid, indecent things to each other, about the other, and what they wanted the other to do, that she surely achieved that particular milestone already. They would break the backs of love for the other and make sure to offer every treasure scrap from down on their bended knees, head bent and arms raised. They would bend and bow and protect and submit for each other, because of each other, together - and this was how they said it.

* * *

><p>Malcolm left for work early the next morning, but he left behind a note scrawled in all haste. Clara discovered it in front of the still warm coffee pot.<p>

_My turn with Ollie today – I'll bring back his scrotum on a spike. Clear some room in the den, yeah? I've got just the best spot for it._

_XX_

Clara thought about calling to tell him there was really no need to say anything to Ollie, that calling more attention to the run-in might make him more keen to shower attention on it himself, but just as she reached for the phone, all set and prepared to dial, she paused. Her hand lowered and released the phone in a slow, mechanical descent as she considered the benefits from this impending confrontation. Perhaps he had something on Ollie to ensure his silence for as long as they had to work together. It was just possible – or more than likely – that Malcolm could scare Ollie into some kind of silence long enough to think of a way to let the truth come out on his own terms. And maybe this would be the one thing that forced them to stop living their lives and their marriage as if it was a word too filthy to utter.

And if this end result required Malcolm to let forth a torrent of rage, then so be it. Let the end justify the means in this and this alone. The thought of Malcolm's temper was as thrilling as the story he would bring home later that night, which Clara trusted would be relayed with all due animation and faithful sincerity. Her one regret was that she couldn't be there to see Ollie's face.

As if to confirm that yes, indeed, this is what she wanted, Clara nudged her phone further away before she could change her mind. __Even if we have to keep it hidden for now, I won't mind___, she thought_, staring out the window above the kitchen sink into the green hedge that blocked her view of the house next door.__ It doesn't have to come out now, not like this.__

Clara set about making that morning's coffee, smiling to herself as she reflected once again on the note. Let Malcolm get angry – let him be furious, even. Just as long as he brought home the spark of that fire and let her kindle it into a different kind of flame, she would be happy. Even if keeping it a secret felt like lying.


	6. The Cooking Lesson

**Notes: **Are you guys ready for the most dramatic soup-making you've seen this side of Kitchen Nightmares? Also includes a fair bit of domestic fluff, as well as a few hints of how these two met/how long they've been together, because I'm shameless and can't be stopped.

Also, please forgive any potential grammatical mistakes. I've just recently learned that my word processor is a bit finnicky with copy-paste fixing techniques, and I have to pore over each chapter word for word to make sure it hasn't left any errors behind. Despite this, sometimes they slip through the cracks. Nothing _too _terrible, I hope. But I'm still sorry.

* * *

><p><strong>The Cooking Lesson<strong>

It was a Wednesday, not a particularly important Wednesday by anyone else's estimate, but significantly important for Clara. _And for Malcolm, _she added with a prompt nod – and then caught herself on the descent, her hopes stalling. _If he remembers._

_He _should _remember, _Clara countered herself, nodding again with a jerk that made her neck tighten. _He promised._

When he came back home, Malcolm stormed into the living room and then up through the kitchen without sparing Clara a single glance. He hovered in front of the sink with his back to her, his phone to his ear, still wearing the coat, scarf, and gloves that he usually would be sure to shed before making it this far into the house. He didn't say anything.

Clara looked at his back. His shoulders were drawn straight and flat. Rigid, unyielding. Temper imminent. But that wouldn't stop her.

"We had this date circled," she said by way of a greeting once the phone dropped from his ear.

Malcolm turned to glance at to her, then turned again to the calendar she was pointing at with the book she had been skimming through for the past hour.

"Is that what all those fucking red rings on the date are?" he asked, pointing to the thick circle Clara had traced around today's date.

The circle was done in a furiously scribbled spiral less as a show of enthusiasm and more as a way to stamp her determination into this one little square of time itself. _Wednesday's the day, she_ thought when she drew the circle yesterday morning, running the pen around a few more times for good measure. _Wednesday is definitely the day. _Malcolm even promised it would happen, which wasn't normal for him. That almost made her hopeful.

And yet here it was, evening time, fast inching out of acceptable dinner hours, all hope slowly leeching away as her appetite only built in reverse proportion. Even though Malcolm was home early (_for_ _him_), he had brought all clear evidence of work back with him. This was less than promising. Malcolm's hardly said hello before he was back to his phone again, scowling magnificently at the contents displayed there. Whatever he was reading seems to please him as much as a root canal done with rusty fishing knives.

_Glad I didn't bother getting too hopeful, _Clara thought, appreciating her own silent sarcasm. She started talking again, hoping to distract him as gently as she could until Malcolm was ready to disengage from what's followed him home.

"A ring would be a circle, so yes, that's what the ring is for." Clara opened and closed the book in a slow fan, running her fingers along the edge of the pages. She kept her eyes on Malcolm, waiting for his full attention.

Malcolm glanced at Clara again, his attention briefly piqued at the not entirely disruptive noises she was making. His eyes lingered the longest on her smile. Crafty, sly, fox-like. He never had to said how much he liked that smile – Clara could tell without a word.

"A sketch of a prolapsed arsehole is how you're showing panic now?" he asked, his voice softer than it was before. Perhaps it was her smile that disarmed him, though an outsider wouldn't be able to know it by the words he chose.

Clara would have rolled her eyes if she didn't also think it would mean committing more energy to her dear husband's dramatics than it deserved. "Malcolm, please," she said instead, suppressing a sigh. The 'please' got his full attention; so rarely did either one said it to the other, it had achieved an almost safe word status that required an immediate change in tack. "Don't bother making fun, I'm not in the mood. … And what do you mean by now?" she added, mirroring his frown, making it a full-on pout.

It didn't work. He barely cracked a smile.

Malcolm's attention moved back to his phone before he let out an impressive verse of swears that made Clara sit up straight, ready to dart over and pry the damned mobile from his hand if it came to that. But with a flash of teeth and a fire in his eyes, Malcolm deposited the loathed little plastic thing into his suit coat pocket and then quickly removed the coat with a furious shift of his shoulders. He tugged at the sleeves and strode into the living room, tossing the coat onto the large cushioned chair that faced the couch before he joined Clara where she sat. He budged her over just a bit while he wedged himself in between the alternating pink and blue throw pillows, which had been Clara's decorating choice, a lot like the silk flowers in the front room.

They were both close enough to touch but neither one of them made the move to do so. They didn't want to be the first to show the need, however much the need was painfully apparent. Clara watched him instead, watched the way his hands pressed into long, thin mirrors from fingertip to wrist in a convulsive snap, until they broke apart. One became a loose fist on his knee while the other trailed up and down his face, pulling and tearing at the heaviness that clung there. Malcolm's hand lingered around his mouth, hiding it like a mask. He looked at Clara at last, removed his hand, and there it was – a charming smile with all the impact of a sucker punch.

"I meant that you've upgraded from a fuckin' wordless, mile-long doe in headlight stare to that artistic abortion left on the calendar," he said. Again his voice is soft, gentle.

Clara's eyebrows darted up as her mouth sank into an angry scowl. But then Malcolm was holding her chin between thumb and forefinger, keeping her face still as he leaned in for a kiss. It was warm and hard and hungry, and she made sure to keep her hands to herself by making a convulsive grasp for her thighs.

They separated and searched each other's eyes for a long, quiet moment.

"Chin up, sweetheart," he said, stroking her chin as he spoke, straying the pad of his thumb up to her bottom lip. "I'm proud of you."

Clara did manage to roll her eyes this time. "Save that pride," she told him, shaking her head gently. "You might take it back if I mess up and then what would you be? A man of your redacted word?"

Malcolm considered this. He was still holding onto Clara's chin, still so perilously close to kissing her again. But she had to keep herself together; now was certainly not the time to get all wrapped up in that. _You've got a dinner to start_, she said, _and hopefully not burn. Or scald. Or undercook. Or ruin in any other conceivable manner known to the culinary inept_. Both of their appetites were on the line at the moment and sure, take-out was always the viable option if the worst came to pass, but Clara didn't intend to let it get that far.

She wouldn't. She had it all under control – or was close to doing that, anyway.

Cooking was a basic survival skill she would like to learn to the best of her ability. A habitual, near to obsessive dedication to souffle replicas was, while admirable, not enough to qualify Clara as kitchen handy. She knew this, and she knew enough to have her pride not completely satisfied by her ability to throw together basic meals when the need required. Her few years with Malcolm had made her start to question the inherent level involved in popping the top off a can of soup and making sure it didn't burn. As he had said, any living thing blessed with opposable thumbs or a basic understanding of can openers could suss that out quickly.

It was a strange bit of cheek coming from a man whose daily sustenance came mostly out of a carton and the palpable terror of politicians, but Clara learned quickly in their relationship that Malcolm was actually quite the skilled chef. In fact, his cooking skills were something of a missed calling in her estimate, but Clara dare not said this to him. Not out of fear, but guilt. It made her miserably uncomfortable to spend time thinking about the other paths Malcolm's life could have taken instead of getting so wrapped in the barbed wire manacles and reverse bear traps of politics. There were no hopes to have for that, and yet it hurt all the same.

Only seldom did Clara dare to wonder if Malcolm ever thought about what else he could have become instead of the man he was forced to be now – and of course that only made her feel worse. Like too much air being forced into too small a space, something was bound to snap and pop and tear, bursting along every seam until the air came rushing back out again, leaving behind jagged scraps of what had once been a whole person. But did she mean herself in the aftermath of these thoughts, or Malcolm at the start, middle, and end of every day?

Inspired by this thought, Clara broke her most recent rule and cupped Malcolm's face in her hands. Her fingers were short, her reach nowhere near as expansive as his, not to mention there was a lack of hand strength that he had in spades, but Clara managed to pull his head down into a little bow without difficulty. He held the position long enough for Clara to press a lingering, warm kiss on his forehead, right on the creases that seemed to be working themselves into permanent marks.

Clara sensed his smile before she saw it. "Hi," she told him, smiling right back.

"Hello," he said, charming, tender, all barbed tongue and bitterness gone. "I'm home."

"Welcome home." Clara kissed him once more in haste before she took a breath and stood up. "Are you ready?" she asked, clapping her hands together. "said yes even if you aren't. I'm famished."

Malcolm got to his feet, rolling his sleeves up and unbuttoning the wrists so that the fabric didn't strain. "Let's get it the fuck over with," he said. She didn't quite envy the courage of the statement as much as feel emboldened by its presence.

Sure, it was _just_ cooking – cooking with _Malcolm_, whose culinary skills were to be admired and the fruits of such labour heartily devoured. He'd worked so hard to show these talents off when he and Clara were still exploring that thoroughly awkward dating stage that adults weren't quite comfortable naming. Courtship was the closest thing to an appropriate title Clara had come across, as "dating" felt a bit too youthful for them both (nevermind that Malcolm was the clear frontrunner in the age department). Calling Malcolm her "boyfriend" felt more naïve than it did seem an honest description of who he was, and who he was to her on top of that.

And here he was, now her husband of three years, a fearsome man who often joked about having to pick MPs out of his teeth before 10 AM, currently handing off an apron that fit Clara like a gown. Clara caught the hooked edge of Malcolm's smile before he made some pretence at turning away to hide it. She knew he was laughing about the apron, which was decorated with smiling teapots and cheerfully grinning daisies, something he'd compared to "the visual equivalent of a fucking toothache." And yet any attempt Clara made to get rid of it was met with immediate, adamant protests.

Smiling, Clara slipped the string collar of the apron over her neck and folded the middle bit over, tying the thread around her waist twice, knotting it over her left hip. "I cook, you teach, yeah?" she said, pushing up the sleeves of her wine red shirt.

"That's the idea," Malcolm said, shrugging.

Clara stepped up to the counter and turned around fast, leaning her back against it. Malcolm was darting around the kitchen, taking out the supplies necessary for the meal at hand. Plates, knives, a saucepan, and cutting board all made an appearance. Then he was on to the food. Vegetable oil, carrots, celery sticks, leeks.

_So a healthy meal?_

But there was still more to come.

Clara pushed back the coffee pot and calendar against the back of a bookshelf that faces the living room's rear wall, making more room on the counter. White wine made an appearance, as did sprigs of thyme, jointed pieces of chicken, bay leaves, bacon lardon (_There goes the healthy bit_) and, of all possible things, prunes.

"Where were you hiding all this?" Clara asked, laughing as she said it. "And when did you have time to get it?"

"Last night. Had a little stroke of genius on the way home trying to think of something hard to cock up," he said, grinning as he set up the saucepan next. "And then it hit me."

Clara folded her arms across her chest and stood up straight, eyeing him askance. "What did?"

"A recipe. Hey, stand here," he said, sliding to the side and offering Clara the spot at the stove. She filled the place he abandoned, wondering if he was actually going to conduct from the sidelines – and then Malcolm moved to stand behind her as close as he could get. He peered over her shoulder (though his chin cleared the crown of her head). "Ready?"

Clara's face flushed, her heart rising up to send blood up through her neck and cheeks. _Backseat cooking – that's new. _She nodded, suddenly all too keenly aware of how he was pressed lightly against the dips, bends, and curves of her lower back and waist. Their height difference made Clara all the more aware of _him_, straight down, narrow-hipped,

Malcolm reached for the vegetable oil and unscrewed the cap, passing it to Clara in one hand while the other grabbed at a spoon on their right side. "One tablespoon of that," he said, and Clara poured out the proper measure, letting the oil fill up the saucepan.

Malcolm reached under her arm and twisted the knob of the front left burner, where the pan stood – then he twisted it again, almost to the end of its rotation. "We'll need to heat that before we start frying," he muttered.

Clara nodded. "Fair enough," she said, watching out of the corner of her eye as Malcolm stepped to the side again, reaching for the cutting board and knife, placing them next to the carrots and celery. "And what exactly are we making?"

Malcolm peered around her left shoulder instead of answering, gently grabbing her elbows as he guided her over to the cutting board. It was like a dance whose steps Clara couldn't see and never learned, and to add insult to injury she was meant to perform it all backwards. Clara's eyes may as well be closed, that was how blind she felt.

How fitting that Malcolm would choose this method of teaching her how to cook: him in the lead, literally guiding and placing her hands where he needed them to be. It was less a test of her patience and more a test to see how long it would take to make her laugh.

"Malcolm?" Clara asked, letting her question act as a gentle poke.

He handed Clara the knife and dropped the two carrots onto the board. "Chop," he said, and so Clara started to do so, slowly at first before he tutted with obvious impatience. She quickened the pace, mindful to keep her fingers from the blade. He laid the celery down as the carrots were carefully shunted to one edge of the board.

Clara couldn't help but sigh again. "Malcolm, really, this is getting silly. What am I making?"

"We've got leeks to wash, keep up," he said. Clara moved to the sink, running the leeks under the tap before shuffling back to the cutting board, moving the celery bits to the side. Malcolm took the knife this time, leaning over her shoulder to said, "Thick rounds, tops reserved. Like so."

"Like so," Clara echoed with a nod, glancing over at the oil in the pan. "That sounds ready." She moved over to the stove before Malcolm did, but he was just a half-step behind.

"Perfect," he said, nodding once. "Chicken's next, so bring it the fuck over."

Clara suppressed a laugh as she added the pieces into the saucepan, which hissed loudly in response. Malcolm handed her a flat wooden spoon, and she poked experimentally at the pieces of chicken as his hand slipped under her arm again, twisting the burner to a lower, less aggressive setting.

"Chicken soup?" she asked, taking a guess. "Chicken... something?"

"Close," Malcolm said. Clara heard his grin before she saw a trace of it from the corner of her eye as he leaned over again. "It's an old recipe, this one. Think you'll like it once you get a good grip on it."

The absence of expletives and the continued grin make her suspicious. He was up to something here, not just with how closely he hovered behind her, but how he withheld the recipe name for no discernible reason that she could see. Clara turned her head to glance at him, eyes narrowed, mouth pulling at the edges into a frown.

"said it," she told him. Her tone left no room for an argument.

"Mind the pan," he said, and after a long moment Clara looked back down at the pieces of chicken, pushing them around again. His smile was still in place. She could almost sense his absurd levels of boyish giddiness when Malcolm leaned in again to said, "And as I said, you were close. It's not chicken, it's cock... a-leekie soup."

There was a deliberate pause done for his amusement and her consternation. He was trying to get her to laugh, but all Clara managed was a deeper frown and a low snort.

"Malcolm, please," she said, shaking her head, the edges of her hair tickling the back of her neck. Clara hoped the sway was violent enough to give him a good whack in the face – and then she remembered the height difference. _The worst it'd do is tickle his chest._ Clara frowned harder and gave the pieces of chicken another shove.

Malcolm's grin reduced to a smirk, but he was still heartily amused. Once the pieces were golden brown, he reached out to pick up the pan as Clara dug the flat spoon under each piece, lifting them up and out onto the plate he held. Malcolm added a pot lid to the top, trapping the heat in. The glass fogs up at once.

The lardon and chopped vegetables went in the saucepan next. "Fry for five minutes," Malcolm said, and they both turned to peer at the clock above the sink to make note of the time. "'Til they start to brown," he added.

"Right. And you're _sure_ that's the name of this soup?" Clara asked.

Again Malcolm tutted, clearly offended. He muttered under his breath about a certain _deprived Englishwoman, _earning a sharp elbow in the side from Clara.

"Never had a look at the recipe book at home, then?" he asked, before he added, "Parents never taught you to cook?"

The questions weren't exactly offensive, but they set Clara on her guard again. It was different than the wariness she felt when Malcolm was being deliberately cagey about the subject. He knew enough about Clara's home life to guess the answer to that; he had to have _someone _to blame for Clara's irrepressible need to try out souffles every now and then.

It was possible he didn't mean much by the question, just as it was possible she was being a touch too sensitive about the whole thing. Clara wasn't sure which to think. She didn't want to have to ask.

Caught between these two thoughts, Clara shrugged, making the gesture as fluid as she could despite the tension that was now knotting its way across her shoulders and back. If Malcolm noticed this perceptible change he said nothing about it. _Not that I thought he would._ But Clara could feel his eyes; they were taking a sharper focus now than they had before, laser-like and intense. She didn't worry about this. She didn't mind Malcolm seeing her. It was nice to know that one person was immune to all her masks.

"Not really," she said, shoving the contents of the pan here and there, making sure it didn't burn. "After my mum passed and Linda came along we all sort of kept to ourselves."

She could feel Malcolm's stare turn from curious to perplexed. Eyebrows wee no doubt involved in the look. "About cooking?" he asked, astonished.

"About a lot of things," Clara said. "You met them, you should know that. But we really don't have to get into that now, do we?"

"No, suppose not," he said, his voice soft.

"So stop gabbing, we've got a cock soup to cook."

It was Malcolm's turn to snort out a laugh. Clara grinned, glancing back at him.

"Hey, look at that? I won."

"You've won nothing 'til the meal's done, sweetheart."

"So you admit I'm gonna win."

"Don't get clever here, Oswald." This banter more than anything else made Clara smile, shifting slowly from her stern-faced, sour scowl into an expression a bit more accommodating for the mood.

The rest of the cooking passed mostly in silence after this. Clara was too focused to talk, and Malcolm had resorted to giving instructions in that low voice she rarely heard out of doors. An indoor voice indeed, and one reserved for her alone. _Food was sometimes involved in those moments too, but hey – we all have our vices._

Malcolm splashed the wine into the pan and took hold of the spoon to scrape at the bottom, the contents all coming to a rapid boil. Clara's hands hovered as she waited to contribute, reaching out for the chicken when he asked for it, snatching at the herbs before she stepped back in front of the stove. Both were added into the pan.

"Cold water," he said next, and she was at the sink filling a cup. He glanced over and nodded, bending his head to the side. "Bit more than that. Enough to cover what's here and make a broth."

Once enough water was added, they both stepped back. Malcolm lowered the heat to a simmer, his eyes ticking up to the clock once more. "Wait about forty minutes, then we've got to move it out again."

"Bit picky, isn't it? The chicken."

Malcolm's laugh was quieter than hers. "It's a bit late to assign a personality to the bird, sweetheart," he said.

Clara washed her hands at the tap and stepped aside to let him do the same, drying her hands on the front of her apron. It was her turn to tut when Malcolm reached out to dry his hands there as well, using it as an excuse to tug her a bit closer. His grin was in place again, making Clara fight a smile. At least she was facing front this time, but she was in less of a mood to kiss now than she was before.

"I'll mind the stove," Clara said, giving Malcolm a little shove away. "You've been away from your phone for too long, I'm sure someone's trying to reach you."

"Fuckin' let them, I'm occupied," he said, but he said it while he moved back to his coat, patting around until he found the pocket. Clara kept her eyes away from Malcolm as he swore loudly, looking at the screen. No doubt there were a torrent of messages missed and calls to return.

"You stand guard," he said, pointing at the stove and giving Clara a quick, hearty thumbs up. "I've got a few lives to destroy."

"Have fun," she called out, waving over her shoulder as he stomped back up towards the front of the house. Clara listened to him head up the stairs – not because he wanted to hide the conversation from her, but because the times he has to drag the grittier bits of work home, Malcolm was careful to section it off into places where Clara was not. It was equally thoughtful and tragic, like he was creating a quarantine zone for only himself to venture in, having been already thoroughly exposed to the damage.

_Just a bit dramatic there, Clara. Maybe he's rubbing off on you_.

Clara sighed and closed her eyes. "Don't ever think that again," she said under her breath. She gave the pan a little prod and a shake. "_Phrasing_," she huffed, the puff of hair sending part of her fringe up and aloft.

Watched pots don't boil, but simmering pans move faster when there's a fair amount of dread inside the cook. Clara knew she was a worrier at best, and a grievously anxious heart at worst. She didn't know how to stop it, if it was even something she could stop. Even before her mother died, Clara seemed bizarrely susceptible to dread. It was her nearest bedfellow all throughout childhood, mixed in with the nerve and fire that got her to chat up strangers in the park and dare getting lost on holiday – the risk was often worth the fear, but the fear was a terror Clara never knew how to endure once it arrived.

Dread was what got Clara through most of university, especially the end of term exams that often kept her up well past midnight in some noble attempt at studying. Graduation brought no relief from this, carrying in its wake a series of sleepless, terrified nights as she moved all her things back from the dorm into the room she had grown up in, the room Linda had promised to change into a storage. They'd had one of their worst rows about that, Clara's father interfering only at the very end when his daughter burst into rare, pleading tears. And then there was that long stretch of months between higher education and her interview with Coal Hill where Clara and dread became fast, frequent friends. She'd been a nanny in that time, as well as a tutor, a dog-sitter, temporary florist, and an office temp alongside a quick-witted, sharp-tongued, guttingly funny woman named Donna Noble. They hadn't worked together for long, but Clara grew to like the woman more than she expected. She'd been the only one to be both genuinely sorry and tremendously pleased when Clara put in her notice to start up at Coal Hill.

"Sorry to see you go, but happy to see you goin' somewhere," Donna had written in the card. She'd been the only one to sign it. Clara kept it in a lacquer-ware box on her vanity along with her mother's jewellery, and the very first of Malcolm's notes during the early days of their courtship. The others were tied together and kept in a shoebox in the closet, behind Clara's tattered copies of _The Iliad _and _Meditations._

Her old friend dread left seemingly for good once Malcolm came into her life – or stumbled, which would be a more accurate description, considering they'd literally bumped into each other at one of those terrible social functions all adults find themselves attending out of obligation. Dread showed its ugly head only a few times since: The first night they spent together; when Malcolm proposed; their wedding day, and then the day Clara moved in.

Not even that lunch hour they spent in the lift made Clara fret as much as this bloody soup.

Clara told Malcolm this as he came back in the room, his mobile gone, his work clothes swapped for a passable attempt at pyjamas. He beamed at the mention, his eyes turning sly as he looked her over from head to toe.

"You'll perk up in a bit," he said, heading over to the stove to peer in at the pan. He placed his hand on the small of Clara's back, the warmth of his touch drawing her up straight.

"And why are you so sure of that, exactly?" she asked, and then she immediately regretted it. Malcolm had a look on his face that she recognized at once: impish, delightful, charming. She knew what was coming out of his mouth even before he said it, and Clara was already rolling her eyes with a long sigh.

"Because a cock's involved in fixing both."

"I hate you," Clara said, her cheeks turning a faint pink. "I absolutely hate you."

"Hate all you like, but keep busy while you do it." He lifted the chicken out of the pan once more and back onto the plate so they could cool. "I'll need a clean pan to put this in."

Clara ducked for the cupboards to the left of the sink and grabbed the second pan, passing it off handle first.

"And a strainer, since you're down there," he added.

Clara handed that off too and stood up before he could make any more comments. As Malcolm stepped back to check the dial on the second burner he frowned to himself, his voice growing low again. "Having fun yet?" he asked. It was a serious question.

"Well you're no Ramsey, but you'll do," Clara teased, knowing it was her turn to joke.

He shot Clara a sharp-eyed glare that only narrowed into a sharp point when she started to laugh. "Time to get your hands dirty," he said.

"Better mine than yours," she finished.

"Pull the meat off," he said, winking at her, barely stumbling from her latest sharp elbow. "Into _chunks_, I meant, yeah?"

"What next?" Clara asked as she created a generous pile of thick, tempting pieces. She popped one into her mouth when she was sure Malcolm wasn't looking and chewed it quickly, savouring the taste.

Malcolm reached over to grab a piece as well. "Simmer," he said out of one side of his mouth, the chicken in the other. "With the leek tops and prunes for up to a half hour. Then we can tuck the fuck in."

"Thank god," Clara said, gathering the final two ingredients. "My stomach's about to eat itself."

"You could do with a few pounds on you," he said, eyebrows darting up as he looked Clara over again. "You alright?"

Clara gave his stomach a sharp poke, refusing to answer that. "Still got the belly, then?"

"Fuck off."

"Love you too," Clara sang out, needlessly checking the stove's dial to make sure it was at a simmer. She didn't look at Malcolm again until her hands were washed and dried once more. She turned and darted her hands up to the collar of his fleece, pulling him down into a kiss.

"Thanks," she said.

"For?" he asked, though he accepted both her praise and kiss with a generous smirk.

"For being patient. And a good teacher. Even if your sense of humour's on par with a twelve-year-old."

"Got you to laugh, didn't it?"

"It did not," Clara said, giving his cheek a light pat. He leaned into the touch. "Try again next time."

Malcolm followed her into the living room, snatching the book off the table before she could make a reach for it. He dangled it over her head, the pages fluttering like wings. "I know you, sweetheart. I know your version of a laugh."

"Just like you think you know when I'm panicked?" she fired back, not taking the book bait. _He'll hand it over soon enough – and I'm more than willing to prod him in the stomach until he plays fair._

Malcolm nodded once, handing over the book with a warm smile that made his eyes burn bright. "Exactly. Doe in headlights, that's you."

Clara took her book back and scowled at him again, settling back on the couch and thumbing her way to the page she left off on. "Mind the stove for me," she said. "It's your turn."

"Whatever the lady wants," he said, waiting until he saw her little smile before he headed back to the kitchen.

In the end, the soup came out delicious. Perfectly seasoned and cooked, with just a splash of sweetness added in to off set the salt.

"That'd be the prunes?" Clara asked, blowing gently on her spoon.

"That would be."

"This really is good, Malcolm. Thank you."

"You made it."

"You had a supporting role," Clara said. "By the way, can we just stand next to each other for the next lesson? It's a bit odd having you breathing down my neck while I've got a knife in hand or a boiling pan in front of me."

"You were fine," he said breezily, smiling at Clara with unmistakable pride. Her cheeks were flushed, just as they always were when she was under the surprising force of his affection.

"Well... Thanks," she muttered.

"Knew you'd get a good hold of -"

"Don't finish that sentence or I swear to god I'll kick you."

Malcolm muttered a pair of words that were unmistakable, even if his voice was lower than his most tender purr. His eyes flashed wickedly, inviting Clara to do her worst.

She narrowed her gaze into a glare, waiting until his spoon was halfway to his mouth before she gave his leg a little tap. It wasn't hard enough to hurt but strong enough to make him sit up straighter, alert.

"Say it again and I'll slap you."

"Save it for the fucking bedroom," Malcolm fired back without hesitation. "I'm eating here."

Clara gave her bowl a little stir, smiling to herself, despite the rather bizarre bit of domestic bliss that inspired it. "You sound a bit _too _keen for that," Clara said, but it gave her an idea for another day to circle and another lesson to give – one _she_ could be in charge of next time.


	7. The Domestic Shuffle

**Notes: **Since I'm writing this out of order and without any linear fashion, I figured I'd clarify something for this chapter specifically. This takes place early on in Malcolm and Clara's relationship, before they're even married. In TTOI timeline it's towards the end of series 1, probably that brief bit between series 1 and 2, so Malcolm's a bit younger here. Clara, in this AU, exists in a fun floating nebulous obscurosphere of age that I haven't really specified yet. In this chapter, and other chapters that will take place from series 1 up to the TTOI specials, Clara's in her late twenties. In S3 to S4 chapters, she's in her early thirties. Nothing too different, and I can't imagine this changes her appearance much. But just in case you wanted to know – well, there you go.

* * *

><p><strong>The Domestic Shuffle<strong>

It was five AM when Malcolm rolled over to gently nudge Clara from her sleep with a touch feather-light, his words a low purr in her ear. "Hey, Clara," he muttered.

She stirred, moving from her side onto her back, peering blearily at him. "Yeah?"

"Move in with me?" he asked.

Clara blinked, keeping her eyes closed for a beat. Sleep hadn't quite left her yet, its heavy hand still pressing her into the shadows between awareness and slumber. But this question worked her out of the thick of it, clearing her mind long enough to allow her to reply.

"Okay, Malcolm. I'll get packing tomorrow." And with that Clara rolled back over onto her side and drifted again into a dreamless, hazy sleep.

If she were just a little more conscious she might have noticed the way he stared at her, dumbfounded, speechless, thin lips parted in a rare moment of surprise. That the bed did not shift again with any hint of movement from his side should have let Clara know that Malcolm was perhaps more than a little surprised – stunned into a mental blue screen would have been a bit more accurate.

And yet she was mostly oblivious to that, fading off into a peaceful rest in the few minutes that she had left to sleep. In Clara's defence she was half awake, but not enough to engage him in any kind of conversation. If she had known any better she would have fought it off to keep Malcolm company through his little mental lock-up. Even this early on in their relationship, Clara wouldn't have willingly left Malcolm to fend off the thornier bits of introspection alone. Clara knew how that process could sting from the still-lingering aches of her own experiences, and it was Malcolm who was starting to help her find the sweet beneath all that bitter.

* * *

><p>Malcolm's question hit Clara properly about a half hour later when he slipped out to start the coffee and hop in a quick shower. Clara replayed his question again as she stared at the ceiling over her bed, noticing the flecks of paint that were starting to chip off, creating a look like the seams of the world were coming undone.<p>

_He wants you to move in with him. He actually wants to _live _with you. _She was too old to be giddy, if a woman inching out of her twenties could be considered old, but she wasn't above small little bursts of uncontrollable joy. Clara rolled over onto Malcolm's side of the bed and buried her face into the extra pillow she always set up whenever Malcolm spent the night. His scent was still in the pillowcase, sharp almost like a spice, what Clara knew to be the lingering traces of his aftershave. Not only had he asked, but he'd been startled that she had actually said _yes._

_And he probably doesn't even think I remember him asking. Bless._ Clara couldn't _wait_ to embarrass him about this over breakfast.

* * *

><p>Some of the first conversations Clara and Malcolm had when they started spending nights at each other's homes, along with what either one of them liked for breakfast (Malcolm ate on the run, naturally, and she didn't eat much breakfast at all), centred somewhat around sleeping patterns. The polite conversations did, anyway.<p>

"_I can get up when you do, it's not a problem."_

"_And what the fuck would you do that for?"_

"_To... go back home for a bit? Before heading out to work too?"_

"_Seems a waste of a trip."_

"_Seems rude to stay in your place when you aren't there."_

"_Hey, stay as long as you like, sweetheart. I don't care."_

But Clara didn't often take him up on this offer, not sure if it was an offer at all or a platitude said simply to be kind. Clara were a little younger then, less in age and more in spirit, and she was still a bit new to Malcolm. There was a fire in him that Clara was just starting to understand, secret sparks that kindled her own buried flame, long hidden as a means of self-defence. Clara noticed it when they first met and loved it before she allowed herself to think of the word. _Any love that came easy couldn't be love at all_, she thought – _except, of course, for me to him, and apparently for him to me_.

Clara wondered as she lay there, delaying getting dressed for as long as realistically possible, if Malcolm asking her to move in wasn't a direct response to how seldom she actually stayed at his home. He surely noticed it. Malcolm's home, like other certain parts of his life (_mostly the job_) felt sectioned off and removed from both her influence and right to mingle with. Clara didn't want to stray where she was neither safe nor wanted. What little experience she had with politics consisted only of listening to her father's prevailing disgust for the whole thing, along with certain controversies she was sure were drummed up. That alone had taught her she wanted very little to do with the world that seemed to be built on the backs of who you could stand on and kick down on your way out of the maelstrom. Far too unpredictable, too maddening, too tempting with its promise of influence.

In time she would come to understand just where she was wanted, as far as Malcolm's life was concerned: wherever Clara wanted to be. In time she would come to know the full depths of how Malcolm craved her influence: fathoms deep, impossibly so, enough to root down to his marrow and eat his heart alive.

And that's when it hit her. _I'm going to live with him. _Clara would say yes again. Clara had meant it the first time after he'd asked, and you would say yes again should Malcolm bring up the question a second time. Clara were going to live with him and make a home together.

A few minutes later, Clara stood in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, already dressed for work in everything but the heels. As she waited for Malcolm to come out of the bathroom to join her for a little chat the first wave of worry hit her.

_What if I'm making a mistake?_

Clara put the mug on the counter with a hard _ping _and stared at the tiles under her feet as the thoughts continued. _Isn't this just a little too soon?_ Six months in and he already wanted to live with her? Not every couple who worked fast was doomed to fail, of course. Some people could just look each other in the eye and know in the strange way that some hearts do that they're meant to be together, that they're built to endure it all together, come hell or high water. Death before divorce, and other such dire pledges of absolute fidelity. Clara wasn't sure if she was such a person – she'd like to be for what she had with Malcolm, newly-found and heartily cherished as it is. But she wasn't yet sure about _him_.

_He's the one that asked me._

_When you were half asleep. It could've been a joke._

Clara shook her head, dismissing that thought at once. _Malcolm's jokes aren't like that. They involve more cursing and parts of the human anatomy that require covering by law._

But still the destructive thoughts persisted. _He could've been talking in his sleep._

_Except Malcolm doesn't do that, not ever. The worst he can do sometimes is snore, and even that's not so bad._

_He could be lying._

Clara laughed at that, a bitter, mocking snort. She shook her head once more and picked up her coffee again, taking a long sip that made her throat burn. "What would he actually gain by doing _that_?" she asked, unable to keep the words to herself. "Getting my hopes up just to burn them to the ground? That's cheap – it's cheating."

Clara talked to herself as if there were two parts of her mind existing in opposition inside this conversation, a bad habit she developed during the more troubling parts of her teenage years when it became readily apparent that she had to raise herself. After her mother died and her father lost himself in a year of grief, Clara came to realise that advice, counselling, encouragement of all kinds – everything she relied on her mother to give and her father to supplement where he could – would have to come from within herself now. She thought she managed quite well, considering how Linda's arrival threw most of her efforts into a tailspin and her father had slowly closed himself off into a world of all-present apathy.

Clara once told Malcolm that her family felt more like housemates in an endless row than they were actually bonded or concerned with each other – "Except for Gran, but she can't come down as much as she used to." That she was a little drunk at the time and thus a little too emotional wasn't so much an excuse as it was an explanation for this confession. That Malcolm was wretchedly sober and surfeit with sympathy was a surprise she still had difficulty understanding. It was perhaps one of the weirdest dates she ever had in her life, and she was shocked that Malcolm had rang her up to ask for another so soon afterwards.

As Clara waited for Malcolm to join her in the kitchen, she let her thoughts lapse back to that conversation. She replayed it so often in her head that she had it memorised.

"_I thought you'd have written me off as... I dunno, too much work or something."_

"_Too _much _work? For fuck's sake, you're a holiday, sweetheart, you and all your problems."_

"_It's nice that someone thinks so."_

"_Look, don't get to moping. You had your moment, now it's time to scrape yourself back up again, right? That's the thing about holidays. You can pop in for a visit but there's nothing demanding you stay. Just pack up and fucking take youself out of there. Unless you got roped into the labyrinth of a fuckin' Key West timeshare pitch, in which case there's no hope left for you."_

"_Malcolm, what on earth does a timeshare have to do with anything in this conversation?"_

"_It's just a fucking for instance. Saw something on the news-crawl about it after you fell asleep last night. Kept a whole group of prospective buyers in there for six hours, yeah? Not even a window to crack, it was fuckin' barbaric. So, how's tomorrow sound? Same time?"_

Clara smiled as she finished her coffee and put the mug into the sink. It was hard for her to believe that conversation had happened barely three months ago. It was even more of a challenge for her to believe that they had progressed to the point where living together was starting to become a potential option, especially since one of the most emotional conversations they'd had involved American holiday home scams.

_Making it to half a year almost seems like a miracle, _she thought, not unkindly.

As if on cue, Clara heard Malcolm whistling from down the hall as he opened the door to the bathroom. Clara didn't recognize the song, but the sound of the melody and the precise, piercing way he delivered it couldn't help but make her smile. He was already so at home, so unrepentantly himself with an arsenal of unguarded smiles that made the corners of his eyes crinkle, accompanied by his warm laughter that echoed loud, louder even than hers. The way he fit himself around Clara, under her, over her, one whole shape fitting to meet and match another felt almost as if they had been together for years.

So why _not _live with each other? It was almost uncanny, the layers Malcolm could shed when he was close to her, not to mention the ease in which he did it. This unravelling process didn't always translate into physical affection though, which Clara was learning to like. Malcolm's lingering stares, full to the bursting brim with a tenderness that made her heart ache, were about as intimate as any caress or kiss.

Clara thought about these looks, her mind turning back to the silence after he posed the question and heard her answer, as she listened to Malcolm in the distance. He couldn't have been lying to her. There was never a less likely scenario than that. Clara knew she wasn't dating a cruel man – she certainly wouldn't have bothered to sleep with him if she had a single hint at such a thing. The worst fault she could find in Malcolm so far was his temper. She had already overheard a few furiously hissed, clenched teeth inducing conversations in their time together, and Malcolm had explained a few of the finer details once she found out who he was, what he did, and what was demanded of him.

_And even that's... Fine. It's manageable. It's doable. _Clara didn't want to say commendable, because what caused him to be so angry wasn't much to commend at all. Clara knew his job brought that mercurial temper out of Malcolm, which she sympathised with as much as she could understand. It helped that Malcolm was almost relentlessly patient in the time he shared with her, as if to make up for the times he could not be fully himself nor marginally capable of humanity.

Acting once more as if on a hidden cue, Malcolm breezed by the kitchen and then doubled back, catching sight of Clara. "Christ, don't fuckin' loom up on us like that," he said.

"I didn't loom, Malcolm, I'm standing still."

"Well don't stand there, give us a kiss." He was smiling wide, eyes sparkling.

Clara handed him a travel mug of coffee instead of doing as he asked. "Here. Drink up, you don't have time to charm me."

"I don't have to make the time, it's a naturally occurring process."

Clara hid her smile and shook her head, eyeing him. He glanced her over right back, endearing even in his silence. One hand in his pocket, the other tipping the travel mug up to his lips, Malcolm paused for a moment before he asked, "What's got you up so early then?"

"You did."

"I was quiet. Barely made a peep."

"Not in bed you didn't."

"Well I should hope not."

Clara rolled her eyes. "Not what I meant," she said, ignoring his smirk.

Malcolm waited, eyebrows lifting. She forced herself to get the words out, no matter how frayed and wild her nerves had become. "I meant I'm up early because of what you asked me."

His smile didn't slip but Clara watched it lock into place, a puzzle piece snapping shut along the edges, demanding it belonged where it sees fit to stay. "What did I ask?"

Clara frowned. _Was he pretending_? She didn't think so. She didn't want to think so. She had no choice but to push on ahead, grimly determined, her old friend dread rearing up to make knots of her stomach and a tattered mess of her heart. "You asked me to move in with you," she said.

Malcolm took another sip of his coffee. He suppressed a cough. He didn't have to say anything. Clara thought she got the hint.

Embarrassed, she moved past him, leaving him with the choice to stay behind or follow as she set about picking up her purse, checking herself in the little mirror that hung up in the hall between her room and the door. Malcolm had followed her, a tall, lanky, dark-haired shadow keeping close on her trail. He even lent his arm as Clara stepped into her heels by the door.

Clara clung hard to his sleeve, wanting him to feel her strength and take strength out of his own. Without looking at Malcolm she asked, casual as could be but knowing the lie was as transparent as the glass door to her shower: "So is that a still standing offer? Did you mean it?"

"Don't you think I meant it?" Malcolm asked. Quickly, breezily, and she heard the laugh and the way it died en route to his mouth as she looked up at him at last.

"If I thought you meant it, would I be asking?"

"Are you calling into question our credibility now?"

"Malcolm, just... Answer the question." Clara stared at him, incredulous. She couldn't believe she was actually having this conversation. _No, it's not a conversation. It's an argument_. An argument about absolutely fuck-all nothing. And there was no anger involved either, just strung out nerves and neither one of them wanting to ask it plain and direct. Six months might be enough to decide there might be a shot at love, but there was still work to be done on the transition into emotionally candid conversations, apparently.

_Nice to know I'm not the only one struggling with that._

"Are you cross with me?" he asked.

"No – not exactly. Not _with _you. Because of you."

"Why be cross? What the fuck have I done?" he asked, gesturing to himself with one hand and the travel mug with the other, looking utterly bewildered.

"You drive me mad, that's what you've done – do – did." Clara sighed. She pulled her hand back off his arm and stared up at him again, chewing on the edge of her lip. "Just a straight and simple answer, Malcolm. Yes or no. Think you can do that?" she asked, not waiting for him to answer before she fired off with the real question at hand. "Did you mean it when you asked me to live with you?"

A strange look passed over Malcolm's face, like a ripple in a pond that disturbed the bone pale reflection of the moon. The moon in this case was the mask she was learning to notice Malcolm fix into place each morning as he got ready for work, and the ripples were the man beneath that, the heart and life and mind and all the grittier pulp in between that would make distractingly decent headlines for ragmags and top columns alike. Clara may have only six months of a life involving Malcolm under her belt, but if there was one thing she noticed about the mad miniature world he occupied, the underbelly of the country so full of rot and ash that any hint of renewal was enough to send them spiralling in a frenzy of distance and spin, it was that this part of him needed to be buried down far enough to die if it had a chance of surviving at all.

"Wouldn't have asked it if I didn't mean it, so yes, there's your answer," Malcolm said, and before she could reply he added, "And hey, that stays on this side of the door, right?" His answer came in a rush, as if he were nervous again. Clara was already smiling before he could finish, her heart buoyant. She dared to throw her arms around him in a tight, rattling hug that he couldn't give back, not with his arms pinned to his sides and one hand occupied with the travel mug.

Clara stepped back before he could attempt to regroup himself, flashing a broad smile as she turned to the door. "I meant it," she said. "What I said back in bed. I'll start packing tomorrow."

"Don't know if I can help with that. Might not make it round tomorrow," he said.

Clara shrugged. "I can still pack without you. Shouldn't take more than a few days, really. It'll give me an excuse to chuck a few things." She noticed Malcolm was nodding non-committally, still listening but carefully switching off, shutting down, gearing up to prep himself for the trip on over to work. It was time to go.

Her heart sinking just a little, Clara waved in lieu of saying another word and didn't look back, didn't say another word to Malcolm. She didn't trust her heart or her mind's ability to translate its words into any accurate assessments of how she felt, not even for something as quick and painless as a _See you later_.

Which wasn't to say that Malcolm didn't talk to _her_.

* * *

><p>Malcolm put more calls through in the hours before lunch than he had the whole month so far, often hanging up with the barest of farewells in mid-sentence, only to call back a few minutes later as if no one had come between the last word and the next. It made Clara's head spin a bit, this maddening process, but she was smiling each time her mobile lit up and saw that it was him.<p>

After the first call, and when it became apparent that Malcolm would not let up, Clara came to a quick decision.

"Class, a wager. I will have to keep my mobile on because I'm expecting an important... or a series of important calls over the next... long while," she said, keeping her smile in place.

"But Miss Oswald, that's –!"

"Yes, Rosie, that's not allowed. Very good. But it's allowed when it's for something important."

"That's not what you said last time."

"Because your boyfriend calling you is not as important as classwork. Please don't talk out of turn again, Rosie." Clara waited a beat before she let her smile reappear again, looking out over the sea of blank stares and slack jaws. "Now, on to the wager. If you promise to forgive me for this bit of rule breaking, I will waive your three lowest scores and just might make this week's exam an open book." She paused. "This will help those of you who have been thorough note-takers especially, so I suggest pairing off and getting along."

The ring of cheers that went up after this announcement almost drowned out the sound of Clara's mobile going off again. She usually kept the damned thing on vibrate, which was a good choice for today, thankfully_._

Clara grabbed the phone and darted out of the room. "Malcolm?"

"There's plenty of fucking space, you won't have to bin a thing."

It took Clara a second to realise what he meant. She leaned against the door to her class, shutting it with a tight snap and keeping an eye on her students through the glass. "It's not a problem, really. It'll give me an excuse to clean. And hi, by the way."

"You don't need a reason to do that, you're always about it. You should get yourself a uniform for that – hey, there's an idea. Might send Sam off to Xpressions to find a French maid gear in your size."

"Don't you _dare_."

"Too late, she's gone off."

Clara pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "Malcolm, I clean because it keeps me busy and it takes my mind off things. It's sort of therapy but without the money wasted for forty minutes each week. And because I sort of, you know. Have to clean."

"Hey, the only thing that you have to do is promise you won't bring those little throw pillows with you. Can you do that for us?"

She opened her eyes, grinning. "Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Would they match your sofa?"

Malcolm's frustration was palpable on the other end of the line. "Now's not the time to have selective hearing, alright? It's – " his voice trailed off, and Clara heard him hiss out a swear. "Talk later. In five. Or three, depends how long it takes to verbally vivisect a person."

Clara imagined that might take at least a half hour to do this, even for someone of Malcolm's vulgar prowess, so she hung up and returned to the class with a quick trot, ready to resume the lesson. She didn't get further than a few minutes in.

She didn't expect to hear from Malcolm again for at least another hour, and yet he called back in almost the exact length of time as he'd predicted – three minutes, with just a few seconds overlap.

"Right, so. No throw pillows," he said.

"I'm bringing the pillows." Clara put her shoulders back against the door and folded one arm over her chest, warming her cold hand under her arm.

"Fine, then you can forget that tattered patchwork disgrace of a fucking bathrobe."

"Malcolm, you're not actually trying to tell me what I can and can't bring along to your – to my – to _our_ home, are you?"

"Christ, say that again, would you? The last bit, right at the end."

"Are you?"

"Before that."

"Our... home?"

Clara could hear the smile behind Malcolm's words. "Jesus, that's a terrifying domestic concept, isn't it? And it's not –" he started to say, and then stopped himself halfway through. Clara heard a hard slam on his end, like a hand meeting a desk, or perhaps a door being shoved shut.

"It's not exactly infuckingtentional," Malcolm hissed, his voice low in her ear, as if he were hiding in a closet or a pantry. "It's all overlapping a bit, sweetheart. Have to wedge the talk in between shouting matches, so I might get a few wires crossed."

"Thank you for... er, taking the time to explain that," she said, balancing her phone against her shoulder. "But I'm still bringing that robe with me."

"Oh fuck me, I'll buy you a better one, please."

Clara shrugged. "You can do that if you'd like. I don't mind having two."

Malcolm hung up without a word, but that didn't worry her so much. She had heard someone talking on his end, a voice approaching fast and rising up to snatch away whatever attention he had cared to spare for her.

He called once more just at the end of her lunch only to say, "You can keep that sad heap of a robe as long as there's no change to the bedtime attire, yeah?"

This was an odd request considering Clara mostly slept in a slip or, when Malcolm spent the night acting as her own personal furnace, a pair of boyshorts or black-laced pants she had just recently taken off. Clara explained this to Malcolm in an undertone, cupping her hand around the phone.

"Exactly," he'd said, and she could almost picture the look on his face as he said it. Teeth bared, eyebrows raised up to his hair, all fierce and alarming and yet compelling despite that. He must have been hurrying somewhere because Clara could hear the faint hint of breathlessness between the first word and the ones that came next. "As long as that doesn't change we should all live together happily. Even with those fucking throw pillows."

"That's a very easy standard to meet, Malcolm. Low hanging fruit, I'd say."

"It's best to keep the expectations low, I find. Because then everything else is a right fucking surprise."

"Point taken. Are... you alright? You sound a bit winded."

"I've got to stop a man from drowning in full view of the press. Not just _any _press, some bird sent over from the Daily wankin' Mail."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"It is, now wish us luck."

"Good luck. Take care."

"You too, hey? I meant it, really. Our home, right?"

Clara nodded, realized he couldn't see that, and then tried to speak – but she found herself shamefully stricken with the burning, blinding prologue to tears. Clara heard Malcolm linger for a bit, perhaps waiting for her to speak up, so she forced out a half-squeaking, "Right, yeah. Of course."

Clara hung up first that time, ashamed that two words could affect you as much as these did. _Get it together, Oswald. Chin up, shoulders back. _She hadn't even cried when Malcolm finally told her he loved her - and thank god she hadn't. _He looked like those three little words were being pried out of him with the corkscrew end of a pocket-knife_. The fact that Malcolm had smiled immediately after didn't lessen this mental image of a man speaking from an edge of pain and passion, but at least Clara had been able to do something about that then.

_"I love you, too,"_ she'd said, her heart making her throat tighten and her eyes widen the way they did when full of tears. But she wouldn't let herself cry then, not for happiness, not for relief, not for any damn thing. And she wouldn't cry about it now - she couldn't. She wouldn't.

* * *

><p>When she got home from work that day, Clara set about in the slow, mechanical process of deciding which parts of her life to shut away in boxes and which to trash or donate or resign to storage for a later year. Clara committed herself wholeheartedly to the effort, a cup of tea at her side for moral support and the television on low as a background hum. Malcolm got in touch only once to reschedule tomorrow's date – "We can push it back just a bit, can't we?" "Of course we can. Just come 'round when you're free." – but other than that it was a quiet, mostly wordless night at home. Such nights were numbered now, which made her feel a bit more joy than it did sadness.<p>

Clara wasn't too attached to her flat. It was affordable and got the whole 'place to live' job done, but it felt much more like a rest stop in between sections of her life. Not so much a real home as it was a customary set of walls and ceiling and a door with a lock to keep out the world that worked so hard to force the horrors in. She was more than enthusiastic about the idea of moving in with Malcolm: she was relieved.

_Our home_. Clara had said it first and he'd asked her to repeat it, only to bring it up again on his own later, without prodding or demand. And while the place may have been technically Malcolm's first, what mattered now was that Clara would bring to that little world now that it was her own to share.

_His first, mine now, ours for... the time being. _Clara wouldn't say forever. Nothing was the only thing that lasted forever. But at least now she had a chance at finding and living in a real and proper home again. That mattered quite a lot. And it meant everything.

* * *

><p>However exhausting it was to pack up all her belongings, Clara did it all with a smile on her face for the next few nights, even when Malcolm was over. She would pause sometimes to sit back and consider the curious turn of events that half a year of her life had taken, gazing sidelong at Malcolm should he be present when these bits of introspection hit. It really was all moving so fast – but Clara was starting to appreciate the whirlwind instead of feeling little more than rootless dread.<p>

Six months had brought Clara to a man who was as generous and singular with his language as he was with his affections, drawing out similar traits long buried in her in turn. This small stretch of time had brought Clara the one example of the benefits of actually going to work-affiliated commitments, which in the past had been so pompous and almost demoralisingly formal in both attire and atmosphere that she only made a point in going because of the open bar. And that open bar hadn't let Clara down in this instance either, seeing as it was where she and Malcolm bumped into each other quite literally, spilling drinks and sharing that awkward stumbling sequence of apologies between two people trying to one-up each other in penance.

"_We met cute," _Clara had once said to Malcolm, causing him to close up his eyes and shake his head as if she had force-fed him a lemon.

"_Don't say that, that's heinous."_

"_It's true."_

"_It's awfully fucking true."_

Yes, these six months had been good to Clara, and good to Malcolm as well, she imagined. Why else would he have popped the move-in question as abruptly as he did, more a sign of his own nerves than it was a prank or a lie or a hoax of any kind? It surprised Clara to think of Malcolm as capable of getting nervous, and after the thought hit and kept her up for most of the night on the very last night in her flat, she carried it over into the day. Her first official, proper day in Malcolm's home, newly made as both of theirs. It was finally here.

Malcolm had been _nervous_ to ask. Which of course could only mean that her answer was as important as it was dreaded. Clara weren't quite sure what to make of this clear power over him. Such thoughts kept Clara company in the time she had to spare on the first proper day of living with Malcolm. It was easier to adjust to it all than she originally thought. Clara had been bringing her stuff over in waves as the days passed, leaving behind boxes and bags and little personal trinkets that were soon looking more appropriate and less starkly out of place as more of their companions littered the two-storey home. There was also a new sense of life that was being added to the house as well, which hadn't exactly been Spartan but did carry the air of being barely lived in and underappreciated, more a formality of a home than an actual one.

But that was starting to change now. Clara could sense it in Malcolm, as if crucial elements of himself were adjusting to the process of having more of her around with a degree of permanence. More than just the toothbrush, change of clothes, hair brush and various collected bits of make up she had left behind before, there were now whole parts of her life brushing up against his own and finding a place together. Books from her university years were given the same space on the shelves in his – _their_ living room, along with the mingled accumulation of movie collections. Malcolm's was more prolific than hers, but Clara's had the most classics, films that even Malcolm would pause long enough to watch. It never failed to please, seeing how easily he was drawn in by the perils and mystery of _Rebecca_, or amused by the body count of a pair of old spinsters in _Arsenic and Old Lace_. His films in comparison seemed to be a mass of subtitles, tears, and lingering leaden ennui.

Photographs weren't much of an issue for either of them. Clara had little to bring over and Malcolm had little of his own for himself, apart from those Came With the Frame families he liked to leave in as a stunt to confuse any guests that didn't know him well enough to tell the difference. He kept the real family photographs upstairs, a hidden shrine for his mother, his sister, and his niece.

Malcolm agreed, with much hawing and head shaking, to let Clara hang up a few pieces of art and take charge of the mantle in the front room near the little table that acted as both work bench and meal supporter. Clara planned to put fresh flowers on the mantle as often as she could manage, glad to be able to use the space. And Malcolm had even eased up about the throw pillows when she pointed out how nicely they went with the couch.

"And they're comfortable, you know. Not much impact for a throw but they're quite useful at the whole cushioning purpose." And this was demonstrated by them both later that night when Malcolm finally came home to greet her for the first time.

Clara pulled him down on the couch after he'd changed from his work attire into something more relaxed and casual, ignoring his half-hearted complaints, knowing they would soon fade. And they did. Malcolm shifted until he lay against the couch proper, letting Clara lean against his chest.

"Comfortable?" Clara had asked after she'd settled down.

"Yeah, I am," Malcolm said. Clara smiled as she felt his voice vibrate up through his chest.

As the minutes passed, Clara returned to the book she had been reading before Malcolm arrived, her eyes skimming fast along every page. Malcolm managed to multi-task with his mobile in one hand as the other idly trailed up and down her arm, his long, warm fingers pulling her mind off the page and the story printed there. Malcolm had wedged a few of the pillows under his head and neck, and Clara used the remaining pair under which to hide her feet. Malcolm may indeed be the human equivalent of a space heater, and often provided such service without complaint or question, but he could also send up a torrent of unholy complaints at how cold she was to the touch.

"What's that you've got?" he asked some time later, dropping his phone down onto the glass coffee table.

Clara tucked her finger into the book and shut it, showing him the cover.

"Never read it."

"It's my favourite," Clara said. "I try to read it once a year, maybe more if I can spare the time."

Malcolm had nothing to say to this, but he watched in silence as she opened up the book again and resumed reading, starting up at the top of a large, black chunk of a paragraph. Clara got a few sentences in before Malcolm distracted her again.

"That's a nice sentiment, isn't it," he said. It was clear he'd been reading over her head.

"What is?" she asked.

Malcolm pointed, running his finger in a quick pass up and down the page. "All of that. It's the sort of nauseatingly romantic wank you wouldn't think to call Victorian."

"It's really only one of those things," Clara huffed, trying her best not to sound offended. But Malcolm heard the bruise beneath the words, and he worked his best to undo the harm. "And that's excluding Victorian," she added before he could try.

"Jesus, you know what I meant. There's too much heart in there to match the era."

"Too much heart where?" Clara asked, holding up the book for Malcolm to take. "What part specifically – show me?"

But Malcolm did one better. He let Clara hold the book as he read the part out loud.

"_'Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still. If you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat – your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me. If you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her, and in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me. I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.'_"

Clara squirmed a bit after this, turning over as best she could without elbowing Malcolm until she was lying with her chest against his, her face held up over his own. Clara smiled at him, holding Malcolm's gaze in a look that lingered long and suggested more than words might ever be able to say. She figured it was worth a try anyway. "Read it again, please."

"Later," he said.

What happened next was one of the rare times Clara would ever call herself happy to be denied a request. Because then his fingers were in her hair and one hand cupped her face and then his lips were on hers, kissing her, warming her, breathing her in. And while she wouldn't dare call herself sentimental, Clara didn't have the heart to suppress the thought that this was their christening kiss. Not the first kiss under this roof to be sure – and may heaven grant it wouldn't be the last – but it was the first kiss when the house was now _theirs_. Malcolm's to share and hers to cherish, but theirs to make into a full and proper home.

And as the years would tell, it was safe to say Clara had worried over absolutely nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes 2:<strong> The book Clara's reading is _Jane Eyre_, so that's where the excerpt comes from.


	8. The Power Play

**Notes: **This chapter includes sexual content (obviously) but also some aggressive talk that is basically all about how best they can sexually frustrate the other one. I've tried my best to be pretty true to the spirit of both their personalities (two Type-As getting together? It's a miracle they haven't fought more in previous chapters). But I'm not entirely sure how comfortable some people might be with that power and control dynamic, so I figured I'd put a warning here to keep you informed. Everything is, of course, entirely consensual, because I'm not an asshole who would write the alternative of that.

The next chapter will be relentlessly cute, I promise. :T Or as cute as this ship _can _be.

* * *

><p><strong>The Power Play<br>**

The joke started with Malcolm's hands on Clara's hips and his lips at her throat, his kisses feather-light. They contrasted with his grip which was tight enough that it pulled up the hem of her dress, insistent and hungry.

Unfortunatel for them both, Clara was busy putting the finishing touches on her outfit for the evening's entertainment. Nothing too glamorous. Just one more work-related elbow-rubbing event to which Malcolm couldn't come (though the invitation cheerfully included a plus one) and to which Clara dread going at all, nevermind alone. The most she could do to delay the inevitable was linger as long as reasonably possible in their bedroom, slowly getting ready as she resigned herself to the chore.

But it was done with a light heart, all things considered. _Malcolm's here, for a start - could put him to some use._

It was this charming, sudden thought that made Clara seek out Malcolm's help with her outfit of choice, batting her eyes and flashing a coquettish smile. She didn't say please. She didn't think she had to, nor did she really want to phrase it as such.

And so with a sigh and a small shake of his head, Malcolm had zipped up her dress just as she asked, mindful to push aside wisps of her hair that had come undone from its hurried French twist. It was quite nice of him to do - but naturally he did so with a mouth full of complaints. Limp ones, lifeless and leaden and ash. Nothing to take seriously. Just more parts to the joke, but the heat behind his words froze Clara's grin in place for a beat too long. She'd have to hide that.

"If you have time to complain, you have time to be useful," Clara said to him, pushing the backs onto her earrings and giving them a decisive twist.

"Sorry, was I not just dressing you like a fucking manservant?" he asked, still holding Clara, hunched over her shoulder with his lips moving across her neck in the way she usually loved. Only now did Clara hate it – because she knew _why _he was doing it. And she knew why he was _still_ doing it.

_He wants me to turn 'round, to give in_. _He wants me to stay._ Clara would like nothing more than to skive off tonight's drink-and-dinner event, something put together for a teacher she never got on with, for the sake of their well deserved retirement. But her absence would draw far more attention than her presence would do. Best grin and bear it, endure it, and prove that she could, indeed, tolerate some of the other teachers in the after hours.

"Pulling up one zipper hardly makes you a _servant_, Malcolm," Clara said. "You'd have to be on your hands and knees a lot more than you usually are for that." And before he could fire back with some retort – Clara saw his expression in the mirror and she _knew _he was just waiting for her to pause long enough to get a chance to say it – Clara reached down to the dresser on her left, making a grab for her perfume.

"Move," she added, holding up the bottle. "Unless you want a face full of _Killer Queen_, move."

And Malcolm did move, to her surprise – moved right to the other side of her neck where his lips and teeth left their warm, nipping marks, sending shivers down her back and making her tremble in his hands. He held on tighter in response, and Clara could hear the fabric of her dress shift against the tops of her nylons. Clara was a garter woman on principle, but right now she was starting to regret this fashion decision. Full stockings would be much better and would keep her thighs from feeling as if there were soft, skimming fingers dancing across their softer curves and surfaces. Or was that an actual thing?

Clara shivered again and looked down. Malcolm had one hand on her hip, yes, and the other was sliding under her dress.

_Didn't imagine the fingers, then. _Clara slapped his hands, both of them. Even the harmless hip-holding one. "I don't have time for this," Clara said, partially ashamed at how the words come out like a gasp.

Malcolm's words were muffled against her neck. "Fifteen minutes."

Clara shook her head and held up the perfume bottle, giving his forehead a sharp, short whack with the cap. "No."

His breath tickled the back of her neck as he moved once again to the other side, the first he was kissing. He breathed in her perfume – a rich, sweet smell, one he loves and one he resupplied Clara with even before the bottle ran out. "Ten," he said.

"Absolutely not," Clara snorted, shaking her head. Her hair tickled his cheek, making him pull back just a touch. But it was all the space Clara needed.

She put the perfume bottle down again and placed her hands over both of his, guiding them off her thigh (she could hear her heart break a crack at this), and then off her hip (his touch was so _warm_, Clara nearly burned with the chill left behind). Holding him still, Clara half turned to glare at Malcolm sharply over her shoulder, her head tilted back and eyes lifted to peer up at him beneath the lashes she had carefully plied with grey mascara.

"Malcolm," Clara said, her voice as calm as she could make it be. "We are absolutely not having sex before I head out for the evening."

"That a promise I hear?" he fired back. There was a shadow in his eyes and a depth in his voice that let Clara know he was just as unhappy about this as she was. And like her, he would be absolutely thrilled if Clara changed her mind, shoved him down on the bed, and after it was all done prepare her best lie to the drones she had to call educated coworkers as to why she was so late. Malcolm would also be completely fine should Clara stick to her guns and keep his hands from her, and likewise keep hers off of him – fine in the sense that whatever spark of passion made him act this way would simply shrug and sputter out to an unsatisfied death.

_Unless he takes care of himself while I'm out_, Clara thought, the little voice of her mind saying so with a snort. She just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

"It's a fact," Clara told him, nodding once and pushing his hands together into a little clap. "If I hang around here and get you off it'll just make me late. And I don't want to call any attention to myself." She said it all in a rush, knowing the best way to pretend she was focused and sure minded was to talk as fast as possible. Something about the speed made people seem to think she was surfeit with far more certainty than she truly possessed.

"Is that the only complaint you've got?" he asked, not viciously, and not even to be all that rude either. It was banter now, light and steady, like they were thwacking a birdie back and forth over the net as if the game were a mechanical process.

"Well, there's also the one about how long it took me to get dressed tonight - not to mention how I don't want to risk a run in my new stockings," Clara added, giving him a pointed stare as she stepped around him and reached for the dark blue bolero jacket waiting on the back of the desk chair. The desk itself was rarely used for its true design purpose, but was more of a temporary resting place for coats, ties, shirts, and a landing point for whatever parts of their wardrobe they stripped off in their haste to get at each other.

"Those are two complaints," he said, showing his teeth in a smile mixed with a beastly grin. Malcolm made no move to pull his hands from the position Clara pushed them in, keeping himself fully contained within her grasp – and she realized too late that she _was_ still holding on to him, her touch lingering long, her fingers wrapped tenderly around the bones at the ends of his thumbs, stroking down to his wrists.

"It's one complaint in two parts," Clara said. "And both are related to how I am not, under any circumstances, going to risk this outfit's integrity for your shagging needs."

"We're upset about _integrity_ now?"

Clara held up one hand, extended one finger, and jabbed it sharply into Malcolm's chest. "Semantics," she said, poking him again. "What do we say about semantics in this house?"

Malcolm narrowed his eyes into a sharp glare. The smile disappeared, but Clara could still sense its presence in Malcolm's overall mood. Light, charming, the spark still flaring, but not in danger of becoming an actual flame. "You tell me, sweetheart," he said.

Without hesitating, Clara lifted up her hand and gave his cheek a hard pat. Darting up her toes – her heels weren't on yet; they were waiting for Clara by the front door – she pressed a quick, fleeting kiss to his lips, not wanting to smudge her lipstick. "That it's _wank_," Clara said, imitating his accent as well as the rough, bitter speech he could adopt on the phone whenever he's brought work home. Clara was still trying to figure out how to tell him how much she liked the way he said such awful, blush-worthy things. It wasn't just the accent, but the tone and the force and the command - she liked listening to it almost as much as she liked the idea of commanding him to say it.

Responding to the sudden appearance of the natural rouge in her cheeks, Malcolm's arms slid around Clara as he pulled her in for a quick hug, a longer kiss, and an even deeper stare. This was just one more thing for her to love at any other time, and loathe now. He knew the power his eyes have on her, not to mention that of his hands, and his lips, and his laugh, and his smile, and every possible feature that mades him _him_ – and what's more, he knew how Clara regarded that pull as vastly far from fair. His stares were lures that kept Clara enthralled... and what do she do for him? What do she do to keep _him_ ensnared? It wasn't always easy for her to tell, though she trusted there was something to knot him to her, as if they had red cords and thick, iron chains linking one heart to the next.

Malcolm had answered this question once a long time ago, when they first got together. He had sensed the actual curiosity behind her otherwise offhand and dismissive tone, as if it were a joke instead of a serious, honest question. His answer had stopped Clara's doubts dead, her heart beating hard.

_"__Well you're fucking here, aren't you? You stayed, you mad and daft and sweet and clever little heart. And that's fuckin' plenty."_

"Say that again," Malcolm said, distracting Clara from her thoughts.

"Why?" she asked.

He laughed, or almost seemed to. But when he spoke next his voice sounded as close to a plea as Clara had ever heard him be. "Make us happy, love."

And Clara would like to, of course. She'd like to be as happy as he wanted to be, but one kiss between them could lead to so much more, and so much more could lead to a lot more than _that_, and before she knew it she would then have him on his back, right where they both wanted to be, and then the whole night would be shot to hell.

Clara ducked aside at the last second, avoiding his kiss with a Herculean effort of will. She walked to the door on steps as steady as she could force them to be. "I can make you happy when I get back, yeah? Your ego can delay being stroked for a few hours, I think."

Malcolm said something back to this – another joke that she had expected, and one she barely responded to – as he followed Clara out of the room, down the small hall that made up the second floor landing, and down the stairs to the front door. Clara hid her laugh as she stepped into her heels, wedging her toes to the ends. She took one final check in the mirror by the door.

"I'll be back after dinner, so make herself something nice," she said to her husband's reflection.

"D'you want me to save you a plate?" he asked.

Clara shook her head. "No, I'll eat when I'm there."

Malcolm could tell by the way Clara hid a sigh and wrapped every word in a weight that this fact was far from pleasing. He said nothing to address it for there was really nothing to be said. Both of them understood, each in their own ways, the various frustrations they both must endure for the sake a pay-cheque. And this was by far one of the more amusing ones. Malcolm's grievances might be enough to fill several encyclopaedia tomes, whereas Clara's would be a modestly selling trilogy of novels. No less impressive or important, just not as expansive.

_Yet_. If Clara had to keep going to these wretched after-hour events, she had no doubt that she would rival her husband's list of career agonies soon.

_At least there's an open bar tonight, _Clara thought. _And a meal. And a two hour time limit before I can fuck off back home_. The time limit was her own rule, set in place only for diplomacy's sake. Two hours was more than enough time to make small talk, listen to little speeches made, and give a toast or two to the man – woman – someone – of the night.

"Wish me luck," Clara said, reaching for the door, her smile fixed in place.

"Best of luck not killing anyone," Malcolm said, imitating her light tone and higher pitch, taking on her accent as well. "Wouldn't want to get any stains on that dress."

Clara turned to shoot him a warning look, her anger not following through with the glare. He was smiling too sweetly for that to last. "I'll call you if I need a body hidden," she said.

"Oh good," Malcolm mused, his eyebrows darting up to wrinkle his forehead and push back the front line of his hair. He'd gone spectacularly grey in the past few months, responding to this change only by cutting his hair a bit too short. Clara mourned the loss of the perfectly tuggable fluff when she noticed how his hair was barely affected even after he reached back to scratch his head. "I'll get an acid bath ready. And then a regular bath. With those little fucking scented bubbles you're always on about."

Her eyes flashed as she chuckled. "You know, you really are quite good at being a manservant," Clara said, pretending to consider the idea more seriously.

Malcolm's smile slipped just enough to turn into a smirk. "You do realise that these past few minutes could have been spent in pearl-clutching balls deep debauchery, yes?" he asked.

_Just had to get that in didn't you? _Clara wanted to laugh at this, but she had already said she would stroke his ego later. He'd have to hold on to that for all it was worth.

"Not wearing my pearls," Clara reminded him. "Didn't want to distract from the neckline."

As expected, Malcolm's eyes dropped to that part of the dress, taking in how it sank into a deep vee. Of course Clara had said this just to distract him, and if she choose to lean forward to adjust her heels, and thrust out her chest just to emphasise certain assets, well, that was her business. He brought it on himself.

If Malcolm complained about it, he did so in silence. Seething, burning, hungry silence. The kind that made her skin tingle when she remembered every touch and kiss, not to mention the recent warmth of his fingers on her thigh. Clara knew that silence. She preferred it to be broken. But not now.

_Later tonight. It'll give me something to look forward to._

Clara straightened up and smiled at him. "Thanks for the luck. I'll take a kiss later." She spared enough time to give Malcolm a wink before she walked out of the house, walking fast down the steps and to the waiting cab.

* * *

><p>Clara came back home a little over two hours later, her diplomacy limit reached and even politely exceeded. She felt like a saint, though no one else at the dinner had noticed the act of martyrdom. That would go against the whole point of the saintliness, clearly.<p>

The lights were off downstairs save for the one over the stove (which she would later shut off, making a mental note to remind Malcolm of empty rooms not needing lights). Clara stepped out of her heels and kicked them gently aside, her feet aching with slow, steady throbs. The shoes landed under the window that faced the little front square of a yard that led into a high, thick hedge. The lights of the streetlamps from outside bled in through the glass, creating a golden orange glow in an imitation of flame but without the heat or the flicker. Clara stared at this little ring of light, letting her thoughts drift and her mood shift.

All in all, she performed well tonight. She had lied longer than she thought she had to, but she did it with finesse. _I laughed. I talked. I listened._ _I avoided all sorts of beady little stares and probing questions._ She even got along with the new headmaster – if smiling kindly while he rattled a series of off-colour jokes while looming over her could even count as _getting along_. Clara wished she could have thought of a clever way of telling him to fuck off and do so far away from her while he was at it, but anger made her mind sluggish, especially since she was working so hard to hide that she wasn't exactly thrilled to be there in the first place. By the time she thought of something bitingly witty and acidic to say, the moment had passed, the chance lost.

And she hated herself for it. Clara wouldn't consider herself willfully confrontational, but she didn't see what was so terrible about calling out a person's much loathed and absolutely horrendous moral myopia when it was laid out in front of her. Find a fault and stomp it out - a simple formula, really.

_So why didn't I do it? _Instead Clara had smiled weakly and hidden her glares to the best of her side-eyeing ability. But apart from that she'd kept rather guiltily, shamefully shtum.

It wouldn't have been a problem at all if Malcolm were there. Clara would have taken his presence to heart and let herself be as ruthless as possible, using him less as inspiration and more as courage to be as deservedly rude right back to a rude person. She often wished Malcolm could be at these damned things, little though he'd like them greatly did Clara loathe the idea of subjecting him to the full depth and skill of her bubbly, cheerful sweetheart persona. Despite all that, Clara trusted that he would of course have a comment to share at a moment's notice, or a quick, awful word to fire back at the person first issuing it, whereas Clara could only bite her tongue and wait for the blood to fill her mouth. Malcolm would know how to talk to these people, not because he was in any way comparable to them but because experience had forced him to adapt to their inadequacies. And this experience had taught him how to counter, contort, and shame even the smallest trace that threw off his own control.

Control. Influence. A menacing presence. Whatever it was, Malcolm had it and awful people had to listen to it – possibly because they were afraid of him and possibly because they knew, deep down, that what he was saying was right. Clara, by contrast, didn't want to _have _to say anything to these people. Not because she didn't think it was worth the energy to lambaste them – _it would be, of course it would be_ – but because she was of the belief that anyone stupid enough to say an awful thing out loud would be too stupid to benefit from any attempt to correct them. Their punishment was already enacted by existing. They were stuck as themselves, incapable of improvement, unable to know that they should even try.

_And I have to work for them. Smile for them. Lie to them._ If she were any more sensitive, it would make her downright sick.

Clara sighed and turned from the window, taking a brief detour to shut off the light over the stove before she forced herself upstairs to the bedroom. It wasn't that late at all, but she was tired and had to get an early start tomorrow. She wanted to sleep, to rest, to relax – and above all she wanted her husband. Not in that order.

Malcolm was working at the desk when Clara came in, sparing her a quick look and a smile as he peered over the tops of his glasses. The desk lamp shone on his face, throwing the outline of his profile in a stark, deep shadow, accentuating the nose, the chin, arch and slope and fall of his eyebrows. After a pause, he leaned around to peer behind Clara in the doorway, looking down at the floor.

"No trail of dead?" he asked, _tsk_ing quietly with a shake of his head. "I expected at least a spinal column as a memento."

"I left it downstairs in the front room," Clara said, taking off her earrings and shaking them in her hand, crossing the room to the mirror and the dresser. "Thought it'd go nice with that shin bone lampshade you're always promising to make."

"Well there's your Christmas present spoiled," Malcolm said under his breath, glancing between one miserably thick stack of papers to the other.

Clara watched him in the mirror, pulling down her hair and combing out the strands with her fingers. She shed the bolero jacket and picked at the lint that had gathered along the shoulders and sleeves before she headed over to the closet to hang it back up. "There's always our anniversary," she said as she passed him.

Malcolm shook his head again. "I had something else in mind for that," he said.

"Oh, what's that?" Clara asked, shutting the closet door and heading into the bathroom to wash her face. Malcolm's voice followed Clara into the other room, making her snort with laughter as she ran the tap.

"I was thinking about having for dinner."

Clara frowned at her reflection. "_For _dinner or _as _dinner?"

"As," he corrected, and he chuckled as he said it.

"How _is _Ollie, anyway?" Clara asked, lathering her face as she hunched over the sink. "Haven't heard much about him these days. Should I be worried?"

"Only if it matters to you what state of decomposition he's in."

Clara waited to follow up on that until her face was clear of both make up and soap. She dabbed it dry with a hand towel that hung on a hook next to the sink, the plush pale pink cotton warm in her hands. "Malcolm, be serious."

"He's very alive and unfortunately very fucking well," Malcolm said, and Clara could hear the clip in his voice, as well as the sour, sombre edge in his tone. "And he knows better than to run his mouth about you, if that makes you happy."

Clara made sure to run her hand over Malcolm's hair as she passed his desk, hoping her touch would be enough to stop his temper before it reached a feverish boil. Her other hand reached back to fumble for her zipper, wanting to get out of that damned dress as fast as she could. "It does actually, yes," she said. "But there's no telling what might happen in a year."

Malcolm turned in his seat to watch Clara struggle with her dress. It was certainly not a show or a farce of any kind – she really was having quite a bit of trouble at the moment, and Malcolm staring at her certainly didn't help.

"Here, let me at it," he said at last, crooking two of his fingers to wave Clara over.

"And why would you want to do that?" Clara asked.

"Well tonight I'm the fucking manservant, remember?" he added when Clara didn't move. "So come here and help make our job a little easier."

Clara smiled and lowered her hand. Instead of moving, Clara waved him over with both of her hands, watching his face in the mirror. "You should come to me instead," she said.

The look Malcolm gave her before he stood made her skin tingle, starting from the bottom of her spine up and out across her back. Clara could feel Malcolm before he touched her, so great was her own need and so apparent was his still, even hours later. His look reminded her of their "meeting" in the lift some time ago, not to mention all those trysts in his office cupboard before that. It was the sort of look that could make Clara shudder and gasp with pleasure, sometimes accompanied by nothing more than a few choice, muttered words, huffs of breath, and alternating light and harsh touches.

Malcolm put one hand on the back of her shoulder, steadying himself there as two fingers reached out to unzip her dress. His silence was more suggestive than any muttered word could have been, and Clara tried very hard not to shiver again.

"So. Back to where we started, yeah?" she asked, holding back an exhausted laugh.

Instead of answering, Malcolm chose to murmur indistinctly. His wordless hum lapsed off into such a peculiar, heavy silence that Clara wasn't quite sure what to make of it. How can he crave her and yet seem, at the same time, so irrevocably sad?

Slipping his fingers inside the top part of the back of her dress to gently nudge it over her shoulders, Malcolm waited for Clara to pull her arms out of the sleeves and push the rest of it down to her hips, which she did with indecent haste but without an ounce of embarrassment. Clara was happy to be free of that dress and all the suffocating trappings it suggested, and she wondered vaguely if this was how Malcolm felt once he was home and free from work for a few short, blissful hours.

_It explains all the fleece and loose grey trousers_, Clara thought, biting her lip to hide her smile.

"What's that look for?"

"What look?"

"That," he said, pointing at the mirror then down at her face as Clara turned to regard him, stepping out of her dress and kicking it up with her foot to catch hold of in her hand. "That look, that scheming little smirk. What's that all about?"

"I don't have a _look_, Malcolm," Clara insisted, unable to resist letting out a little laugh. It was all so silly, this accusation of his – especially considering how he had just finished looking her over as if every shift of his gaze could tear off a layer of clothing.

_Maybe he's projecting - just a bit._ It did seem within Malcolm's own strange form of humorous reason to willingly confuse Clara, done as some sort of temporary distraction from the papers that have made his gaze bleary, his shoulders tightly drawn, and a faint blue vein appear in his forehead. He was just after a bit of fun, something brief and foolish and harmlessly amusing.

_No need to overthink it, _Clara told herself. _He's just flirting to take the edge off._

Straightening her dress and folding it over her arm, Clara pulled off more bits of stray hair and fuzz and let them fall slowly down to the carpet. She tilted her head back to catch Malcolm's eyes, unable to keep a straight face any longer. "Have you been working ever since I left?" she asked.

"I've got folders taller than you in the spare room that I'm meant to read through before a breakfast meeting tomorrow," he said, raising his voice at the end as Clara moved from directly in front of him to the bathroom again, dropping her dress in the hamper there. It was almost full, sporting a collection of pants and stray socks and blouses with loose buttons. Malcolm's clothes were mashed in angry wads down near the bottom, while Clara's were usually lucky to make it into the basket at all.

"Anything interesting?" Clara called out, pausing to unfasten her nylons and quickly drop off her garters in the hamper as well.

"Is that a joke?"

"It's not a very good one I'm afraid. I'm tired. Tonight took a bit more out of me than I thought it would."

"And yet you wear the dry leathered look very well," Malcolm said.

Clara _knew _she was tired because it was far too easy for him to get her to laugh. _That's twice now, twice in only a few minutes' time._ "Same to you, dear," Clara said, smiling sweetly as she turned to face him again.

A tense moment passed as they stood there looking at each other, him fully dressed and Clara just one little silken slip away from bared flesh. The tension boiled, peaked, then mounted into a heat that felt like hands on her skin, making Clara fold her arms over her chest and take in a calming, deep breath. Malcolm, if he noticed any change in the atmosphere at all, remained composed and quietly curious, still watching Clara closely.

"You should take a break," Clara said, surprised to see that Malcolm hadn't gone back to the desk yet – _a good sign_ – but instead seemed to have moved closer to the bed, his expression attempting all signs of innocence. "Just for a few minutes. You've earned it."

"Do I have your permission to relax, then?" he asked, his voice low, clearly amused. He was smiling at Clara in that same way that made her heart a shuddering, mad thing beating back against the bars of its own cage.

"You do indeed," she said with a prompt nod. Taking another breath, Clara stepped forward to wrap her arms around Malcolm's reed thin waist, pulling herself closer, pushing up to the tops of her toes and holding her breasts against him. His eyebrows darted up at once, wrinkling his forehead and shifting his granite grey hair a bit as Clara kissed him, pulling his old trick of letting her mouth linger and her breath play out in a slow, small fan. Clara knew it would make him shiver. It always did that to her.

At first Clara thought the trick, her own little joke, hadn't worked, that he was unmoved and completely unconcerned by her albeit transparent efforts of seduction. And then Malcolm's hands were on her in a flash, one hand winding through her hair and holding the back of her head in his long, thin fingers, while the other made the obvious, almost laughably expected grab for her left breast. Clara wanted to laugh but his kisses were firm and the force of them bent her back until she was unsteady on her feet.

She pulled one hand off of him to grope behind her, looking for the bed. Finding it without much stumbling or embarrassment, Clara hopped up and kept one hand firmly latched onto Malcolm's shirt, dragging him along. But instead of joining Clara on the bed, Malcolm chose to straighten up, pull back, and slide his fingers down so that his hands rested on her knees (after making a few brief stops for a grab and a paw and a lingering caress that had the strange end result of pulling up the end of her slip just above her waist).

Malcolm looked down at Clara, his gaze dark and eyes hooded, a half smile in place for a moment that stretched on in an awful, agonizing breach of time. It seemed to extend indefinitely as Clara caught her breath and pushed herself up on her elbows.

"Are you coming on or not?" Clara asked, intentionally phrasing it as such. She wanted him to move, to react, to laugh, to do _something_ besides stand there and gaze at her with a look that devours. She was dangerously close to being driven to absolute distraction by his silence, along with the heat and weight of his gaze, not to mention his hands on her knees, holding them steady. Her knees were up and bent, her legs trembling through her thighs because of how hard she had planted her heels into the bed.

And Malcolm said nothing. It was a self-willed silence, as stubborn as it was utterly enticing because it meant he had riveted all his attention to Clara, listening, looking, _feeling_.

Clara shivered beneath his hands. "Malcolm, I'm not going to beg," she said, holding her chin up and narrowing her gaze.

And then Malcolm went down to one knee, then the other, sliding his hands under her thighs until he got a firm hold on the soft flesh that felt set ablaze beneath his touch. He pulled Clara closer to the edge of the bed, closer to his mouth with lips that were prepped to kiss behind her knees, the inside of her thighs. No doubt he would leave a trail of little nips of teeth and lovebites that Clara would only half regret in the morning.

Perhaps Clara was just a bit too eager, having imagined all this before he did a single thing besides kneel down and smile a wicked, sickle grin that didn't show his teeth but set a hook into his eyes. It made Clara turn her fingers into the very same. She grabbed what little of his hair she could hold and tried to pull it, laughing as her hold failed.

"Come _on_," Clara said, her voice weak. She was only seconds away from saying the word he was waiting to hear and both of them knew it. Clara set her teeth into her lip to hold it back, not trusting the word to stay locked inside without an extra bit of effort.

_Please, _Clara thought, putting the plea in her eyes before she shut them, feeling his breath on the inside of her thighs, the hint of his lips kissing, exploring, moving up...

And then he was gone. Just like that. Clara heard the bones of his knees crack just a bit as Malcolm stood up again, and her eyes flew open, already prepared to glare a merciless, well honed death stare at him. And oh how Clara glared, with her teeth on edge and her face flushed from the roots of her hair down past her neck.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, forcing the words out as she watched Malcolm give her a roguish wink and a quick pat on the outer edge of her thighs.

"Break's over, sweetheart," he said, taking a quick pause to lick his lips once he knew her eyes were on his face again. "Better get back to it."

"Oh, don't _you dare_." Clara watched as Malcolm gave a lazy lift and sink of his thin shoulders as he turned back to his desk. Clara could see the edge of his smile when he sat down. It was thrown into shadow by the way the desk lamp was placed. It was a different smile than before – arrogant, confident, a trickster's grin.

He was playing with Clara again, or perhaps he was still playing he same wretched, yearning game from hours gone by. And as angry as this made Clara – and oh how it made her blood boil and her heart stutter, and she wanted to set her teeth into his neck before she buried it beneath kisses – Clara knew she wouldn't let that temper show.

_Not on his life._

Just as she wouldn't beg, Clara also wouldn't burst forth in a torrent of bitterness either. Malcolm wanted herto do that. Just as he wanted Clara to say _please _and moan and murmur forth all manner of indecent things, he wanted to see Clara rage at him, demand him to come back and finish so at least one of them could get off easy tonight. Clara knew this as surely as she knew that he was purposely keeping his eyes from Clara. It was almost commendable, the way he avoided looking at her, especially since she was damned certain her glare was like a nail scratching down his back in a long, painful hiss of split skin.

She'd get him back for this. It was a matter of pride now, dammit. And if there was one thing Clara have to spare, apart from a knot of anxieties and the familiar cold weight of her old pal Dread, it's that noxiously bountiful sin known as _pride_.

With a long breath and a commendable effort, Clara edged further down to the end of the bed and tried to compose herself. Clara adjusted her slip, pulling the edge of it back down to cover her thighs as she counted each breath as it left her lips and returned through her nose. In and out, in and out, a gentle rhythm meant to lull her back to stability.

_A shower should work nicely. Yes, that's exactly what I need right now, _Clara thought, pushing herself off the bed and walking hurriedly across the room, making a wide arc away from Malcolm's desk or the reach of his hand. She left the door open as she forced herself out of the slip and all other undergarments beneath, not caring if he was watching her. _Let him look, the bastard._

Clara pulled aside the shower curtain and got the water running, listening for the telltale sound of his chair creaking with his weight. Clara put her hands to the back of her neck and stretched, waiting for the pops and kinks to undo themselves. She sighed long and low, shaking her hair out over her back. That's when she heard the creak. Acting as if she didn't expect him to stare at all, Clara peeked over her shoulder and smiled, catching sight of Malcolm's face peering round the doorway.

"Do us a favour and close the door?" Clara said in her sweetest voice yet, a complete change of tone that was almost worryingly dizzy. No doubt it knocked him for a loop. She hid a laugh at how his gaze flickered up and down her body, fully nude now and not caring a damned bit about it. "Wouldn't want the steam to get you all hot and bothered while you're hard at work," Clara added.

Malcolm laughed in short, tense bursts, shaking his head. Not angry, no, but definitely not completely amused. He reached out to grab the doorknob, pausing just before he slammed it shut to look Clara square in the eye and say, "Fuck off, sweetheart."

Before the door could shut completely, Clara made sure he saw her wink.

And yet for all his harsh talk, Malcolm had moved his work downstairs by the time she got out of the shower.

_Coward, _Clara thought, laughing as she got dressed for bed. She took one look at the bed itself and then at the door, thinking fast. She wasn't _so _mad that she couldn't wish him a goodnight, surely...

... But that could wait 'til he was back in bed. Clara was so tired, and the shower has relaxed her weary body marvelously. _Going downstairs now will be just like walking into his hand. Stay up here. Go to bed. _Yes... that was for the best. Let the little game carry on for a bit longer. What was the harm?

Clara smiled to herself and lumbered over to the bed, tugging on the blankets, the sheets, crawling inside the warmth. She found herself half way to a dream just as she got settled on the pillow, and she was fast asleep by the time Malcolm came up two hours later, having waited for Clara to come down. When it became obvious that she wouldn't, Malcolm then decided he might as well make the best of her absence by actually getting some of that work done.

Clara only vaguely remembered rolling over in her sleep to fling one arm around Malcolm's chest and nuzzle into his shoulder, her hair falling over her eyes and obscuring them from view. She felt Malcolm's thumb graze her cheek as he stroked her hair aside, pushing it back to free her face and neck. The touch stirred her only a little from her dreams.

"Malcolm?" Clara murmured, her words slurred with sleep.

"What is it?"

"You can fuck right off too," she said, giving his chest a light slap.

Malcolm held her hand right over his heart. Clara could feel him shake with silent laughter but if he had anything else to say after that, she didn't hear it. She fell back into a black, dreamless sleep. The steady beat of her husband's heart beneath her fingers lulled her there, as did the comfort she took from his hand locked onto hers, his wedding ring warm against her always icy touch.

* * *

><p>Clara woke up curled up on her side, facing away from Malcolm's half of the bed, gathered up in a little tangled of bent knees and twisted blankets. She moved around in her sleep quite a lot and Malcolm usually accommodated her change in position with ease, waiting until she stopped stirring before he pulled himself in close again. Judging by the lack of warmth, Malcolm had already left the bed.<p>

After Clara yawned and stretched, feeling her shoulders and neck pop like little brittle twigs cracking, she noticed the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, along with a faint, high-pitched whistle. Her arms dropped with a heavy flop as her eyes grew wide. _That can't be Malcolm, _she thought, sitting up in bed and staring at the source of the sound. It was coming from the hallway outside the bedroom, drawing closer with every soft _boomp-boomp _of hard, quick steps. It _sounded _like Malcolm... but it certainly couldn't be him.

Malcolm arrived in the room, looking for all the world as if he was the perfect picture of innocence. He even had the nerve to draw up short at the sight of her, as if he were surprised to find her awake. Just as _Clara _surprised to find him completely and totally –

"Naked?"

"Hm? Sorry?"

"Why on earth are you walking around the house naked?"

"Well you can't expect a man to bathe with his fucking clothes on, can you?"

"I suppose that's... true," Clara said, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his face. It was surprisingly hard to do, and Clara wondered if this was how Malcolm felt whenever she worked herself into dresses and skirts and anything else besides oversized, comfortable hooded sweatshirts and leggings. "But that doesn't explain why you're wandering about like... like that."

Malcolm's smile lit up his changeable blue eyes, which were right now so damnably enticing it was almost a mistake to be looking him in the face. But to look anywhere else on him would only make Clara blush – and he knew it of course, because he knew _Clara _– and to look away from him at all would be tantamount to admitting defeat. It would be like begging, and Clara was absolutely not going to do that.

"D'you have anything against practicality now?" he asked.

Clara rolled her eyes and climbed out of bed, shaking her head. That got Clara to stop staring at him and his body, his long arms and narrow hips and –

"Call it whatever you want," Clara muttered under her breath as she stomped over to the closet. "I can see exactly what you're doing and I'm not fooled."

"Not doing anything but standing here," he said, but he was lying right to her back because Clara could hear him walking over to her, resuming his strange, jaunty whistle as he strolled into the bathroom and to the waiting shower.

"You shouldn't leave the water running if you aren't under it!" she shouted, grabbing at the first bits of clothing her hand touched, her face burning red. "And the same goes for the lights, you need to stop leaving them on if you aren't in the room."

"Are you complaining to us right now?" Malcolm said, interrupting his own low, off-key singing. By the echo that carried out from his voice, he was already in the shower.

"Yes, this is definitely a complaint."

"Sorry, can't hear a thing, you'll have to come in here," he said, pausing long enough to wait to hear her aggravated growl or any trace of a retort.

Clara stayed silent, defiantly so. An idea hits her as she looked at the clock on the nightstand, calculating how much time she had left before they both had to be off for work. A good hour stood between that unhappy departure and this current, devious moment. Grinning, Clara laid out her clothes on the bed and all but skipped into the bathroom. "Malcolm?" Clara called out, using her sweet voice again.

He drew the curtain aside, showing more than just his face as he looked Clara over. Her smile stopped him short but only for a few seconds. "Is that the look you use when you complain now?" he asked.

Clara shook her head. Reaching down to pull her shirt over her head in a slow, dramatic gesture, Clara then tossed it onto the floor near the hamper and leaned forward at the waist, stepping out of her panties. Doing so gave Malcolm a clear view of her breasts before she straightened up, her shoulders back as she approached the shower. "Make room in there for me, yeah? I've got to get ready, too," she said.

Clara could see the gears at work inside Malcolm's head, knowing he had to choose between cursing or complying, and taking on all the risks and consequences that might entail. She took another step forward, reaching out to push the shower curtain aside and letting her eyes trail slowly up and down from the top of his head to his thin toes. "I'm not hearing a no," Clara said, grinning.

"Hurry the fuck up, then" he said, spitting venom that couldn't leave any lingering harm or scar behind.

"Budge up then," Clara said.

Malcolm grit his teeth as Clara slipped in next to him, purposely rubbing up against him here and there as she took her place just under the showerhead, forcing him to step back into the whirls of steam. For the first few minutes, neither one made much of an effort to touch each other, the two of them determined to hold the silence longer than the other. Which isn't to say neither one of them weren't trying to make the other break it first.

Clara's choice of attack in this new silent seductive warfare was to lather herself up as slowly and gratuitously as possible, running her hands over her breasts and belly and hips, smiling almost bashfully as she heard Malcolm force a cough. He got Clara next once her eyes locked on his. She hated how long it took Clara to look away from the slow, steady path his own hands worked over his body. The sight got Clara to let out a low, sharp hiss.

"Did you say something?"

"No." Clara told herself that her face was burning because of the steam, but she was smart enough to know her own pathetic lies and traps. She turned around to show Malcolm her back (and to give her a bit of a break from ogling _him_).

Too late did Clara realise she was too far away from the shampoo and conditioner, which was exactly what she needed next. They were on a little shelf behind Malcolm. To her surprise and tremendous relief that exceeded her current ability to turn into speech, Malcolm seemed to realise this as well, and didn't push it to his advantage.

"Right, you've got all that fucking hair to wash, haven't you?" he asked, and Clara heard the cap of the shampoo pop off as he squeezed out a fair portion into his hand. Clara watched all this over her shoulder, staring wide-eyed, amazed. Malcolm lathered it between his hands for a few seconds before nodding to her head, reaching out for her soaking hair. "Hold still, yeah? Might want to turn round so I can keep it clear of her eyes. Wouldn't want them to get red."

"... Thanks?" Clara said, turning around and stepping closer to him, tipping back her head as Malcolm's fingers started to work in slow, strong strokes across her scalp. She was only a little bit wary about this sudden turn of kindness. It was not exactly out of character for Malcolm to do this; he washed her hair before to her extreme, strangely placed erogenous zone's delight, but it certainly doesn't make sense for him to do this _now_. Not while they're playing this _who can give in first _game.

"Can't step a wee bit closer, could you? My arms are popping from their fucking sockets here."

Clara sighed and shuffled just a step or two closer. Her knees knocked against Malcolm's legs and she huffed out a little apology, bumping up against other parts of this conniving, string-thin man. Parts that were warm and hard and full of blood, just like her face. "Hurry up," Clara said.

"Keep her head straight, it's all starting to slip," he said, his hands sliding through her hair and lathering down to the ends.

"Malcolm?" Clara ask, her voice a flat lump.

"What now, love?"

"Are we still... playing or fighting or... play-fighting?"

"We were?" he asked, voice rising with surprise. "Is that what last night's look was about? And that new one from earlier?"

"Don't play dumb, please," Clara said. "We're both too clever to fall for that."

"Careful, I'm rinsing now," Malcolm said, and Clara pressed her hand over her eyes and surrendered to one more sigh. Cupping one hand over her eyes, creating a little bridge to prevent the shampoo from getting in her eyes, Malcolm passed his other hand through her hair, working every trace out with an infuriatingly tender touch.

"Is this part of the game?" Clara continued. "You pretending to be nice so you can surprise me with something bad later?"

"I don't _pretend_ to be nice, Clara, I don't have the energy," Malcolm scoffed, pulling his hands back. "You can look now."

Clara shook her head, her face still in her hands.

"Well you can move off to the side then, I'm not done yet," he said, holding the sides of her arms and rubbing them in quick, warm little pats.

His touch got Clara to lower her hands as she took a quick breath, using it as the strength to stand up straight. "Can I ask you something and get an honest, thorough answer?"

"Ask whatever you'd like, just do it from over here," Malcolm snapped as he looked Clara over quickly, cursing again as he shuffled around to be closer to the shower head. "Time's a fucking factor, yes?"

Closer to the bottle of conditioner now, Clara poured it into her hand and work it angrily through her hair. "What sort of people would you say we are?" she asked him.

Malcolm couldn't look any more surprised than he did in the seconds after her question. "Are we honestly having a discussion about this? Here? Now?"

"Well it'd be nice to work out before we go off for the day, yeah? No point parting ways on a bad note."

Shaking his head with a shrug and a half open mouth, utterly confused, Malcolm said, "No. No we are not having this discussion. It's introspective wank – and all before a cup of coffee!" he added, as if this were the chief offence. "Have some mercy on us, sweetheart."

Instead of answering, Clara slid around Malcolm under the water to rinse the conditioner out, holding her eyes shut tight. She could hear Malcolm pull back the curtain and step out onto the little rug outside of the shower. But he didn't leave the room. "Is this what we're going to do now?" Clara asked. "Have petty little arguments about ego clashes and power grabs because neither one of us wants to give in and say we actually _want _something from each other?"

"Oh Christ," Malcolm sighed, and Clara watched his shadow behind the curtain shake its head again as he ran the towel over his hair and shoulders. "Right, look, it was a bit of a joke that got out of hand. Nothing to cry on about."

"I know it was a joke," Clara said, washing out what remained of the conditioner and doing a few preliminary passes under the water before she moved her hands over her face. She then reached out to shut the shower off. "I was laughing my tits off about it for half the night, you must have noticed."

"They were in place last I checked," Malcolm muttered.

"Shut up," Clara said, stepping out of the shower and reaching for the remaining towel on the rack. She squeezed out the lingering bits of water from her hair and into the towel, watching Malcolm wrap his own around his waist and head off into the room, making for the closet. Clara followed him with her eyes, raising her voice so he could hear her. "Malcolm, all I meant was that I don't want us to start being passive aggressive to each other about absolutely nothing of consequence, and then trying to pass it all off as a running joke. I want to know we're better than that – that we won't turn into... Well. Who we are when we're not around each other."

"And who are we when we're not around each other?" Malcolm asked, his voice a low grumble that barely left his throat. "What's your take on that?"

"Incredibly talented, control-hungry liars who get better at it every day," Clara said, catching sight of her face in the mirror in the bedroom. She looked wide eyed, worried, but eager to hide it. Clara chewed on her lip. _Calm down. Just say it. You can say it to him of all people._

Hearing nothing from Malcolm, Clara continued kicked the towel over to the hamper and stomped out into the bedroom, making for the dresser. She bit her lip again and paused. The next part would be hard to say.

"I want us to be better than that," Clara said. "I want us to able to – to let go_, _to be honest with each other since we can hardly be that way for anyone outside the house. I'd rather we be honest with each other, even if it's about something ugly and silly and daft."

Silence followed this remark. Malcolm was either considering it carefully or he was trying to find the best way to tell her that she had gone absolutely mental. Buttoning up a clean white shirt, already dressed in his pants and socks, Malcolm watched Clara put together the rest of her outfit. She got as far as her bra before he cuts in, taking hold of her arm in a warm, gentle grasp.

Looking Clara right in the eye in the sort of stare that makes her heart stutter, Malcolm said, "It was a joke, eh? A joke. Look... I wasn't even a wee bit disappointed that we couldn't have a nice hard shag before you went off to be miserable for a few hours."

Clara stared at him under her lashes, one eyebrow raised. "Is that right?"

"It's mostly right but it's all over now, and that's what matters," Malcolm said, holding her other arm and showing the first true smile all morning. "We're not liars, sweetheart. Not to each other and that's what fucking matters, doesn't it? And even if we were that'd be plenty fucking fine, right? We're married. We're allowed to be awful to each other now and then."

"Are we now?" Clara asked, amused and somewhat touched that he could think this way.

"Christ, I should fucking hope so," he said, his eyes glinting as he leaned down to give Clara a kiss. "Or else I've cocked up the last four years of your life, haven't I?"

These words nearly broke her heart. Clara wrapped her arms around Malcolm and pulled him down for a hug hard enough to make his back crack. With his face now pulled down to her height, Clara pressed her lips into quick, hard kisses across his cheeks, his lips, his chin, and the highest point of his forehead Clara could reach. Malcolm endured this attack as placidly as he could before he let out a sigh, slid his hands up to cup either side of her face, and kissed Clara hard enough to bend her back again.

"Don't say that," Clara told him, fighting for breath between each kiss. "Don't ever say that to me again. It's not true."

"What's not?" he asked, his voice low in her ear as his kisses moved from the side her neck down to her shoulder, gliding his teeth and tongue along her skin.

"You haven't messed up anything in my life, Malcolm." It was easier to say these things with her eyes shut and his body against her, the two of them stumbling back towards the bed and falling down together in a jumble of touches and kisses and gasps. "I'm happy you're in my life – and I'm happy you're _mine_."

"Repeat that bit," Malcolm said, biting her lip and unhooking her bra with one hand while the other trailed down to her bare hips, sliding in between her legs. "That part at the end, yeah?"

Clara laughed and lifted up her hips. Malcolm was already pulling himself out, working himself back to a full erection in a few hard, short strokes. "You're mine, Malcolm," she said, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip this time as she wrapped her legs around him. He was inside her properly before she could finish the rest of it. "You're mine and I couldn't be happier."

During the rare times in which Malcolm was on top – Clara was usually the one up there to both of their delights, and usually on Malcolm's insistence – he had a habit of holding Clara down by both of her wrists, giving her just enough room to twist and push back against his grip. It was the playful struggle they liked, not to mention the way Clara could command and control and guide him even while she lay pinned beneath him, lifting her hips up to meet every thrust and matching every moan and curse with fouler ones of her own.

"You're mine," Clara told Malcolm over and over again, the mantra interrupted now and then with a hiss and a howl, sometimes even breaking off into a shuddering moan as she felt her body tense, her thighs and lower belly burning hot with pleasure. "You're mine – all _mine_."

"Say it again," he groaned, sliding his fingers down her arms until they were on her breasts again, squeezing hard enough to hurt but it felt too good for that. "Do it for us, sweetheart. Make us – _happy_."

Clara wrapped her legs harder around him and squeezed every muscle she could, holding him tighter inside until he moaned her name. "Say please," Clara told him, moving her arms around his back and dragging her nails down hard enough to scratch. He shuddered over Clara, cursed and moaned and said her name again. "Go on, then. Say it. Say please."

Malcolm's teeth were on her shoulder, biting hard enough to really, truly hurt. Clara winced, reprimanding him with a hard tap ont he back. As penance he replaced the bite with a kiss. "Fucking say it, love. _Please,_" he said.

Clara ran her nails up his neck and grabbed hold of his hair, pulling on what little she could hold. When Clara came it was in a long, loud moan, her back arched up, her breasts pushing against Malcolm's chest, and by the time Clara dropped down to the bed again he had already finished right along with her in four long, hard thrusts. "Mine," Clara said through it all, listening to him grunt with pleasure and hiss and gasp, collapsing against her once his orgasm passed. "Mine, mine – _You're mine_."

A few minutes later, they both peered over at the clock on the nightstand. The hour was almost up. Forty minutes had passed. They now had both have fifteen minutes to untangle, clean up again, and shuffle off to work.

"Hey, look at that. You got your fifteen minutes," Clara said, patting Malcolm on the back.

He shook his head, laughing as he lowered his head down onto her breasts. "Ten," he said, nuzzling closer to Clara as he settled into a position that was a bit more comfortable. "Let us nap a bit."

Clara stroked Malcolm's hair and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. "Five minutes, then," she said. They would both be late for work, and inconvenienced by all the consequences that would follow, but so be it. It would be the one rare moment where Clara didn't mind giving up control, letting go - but only _slightly. _She was out of the house before Malcolm finished his coffee.


	9. The Birthday Prank

**The Birthday Prank**

"No, no, you go on ahead," Clara said, all but shoving Malcolm out of the kitchen and towards the front door. Her smile – wide and rigid and not at all convincing – only clamped in tighter when he gave her a quick look-over, half his face creasing into a series of wrinkles while his mouth opened in a small, shocked _O_. But even this wouldn't stop her.

"You go have a nice day picking ministers' molars out of your hair, okay?" she continued, standing awkwardly in the front room in between the kitchen and the foyer. Clara steadied her hand on the little square table at which she and Malcolm sometimes took meals, feeling sufficiently awkward and under no circumstances willing to admit that to herself. "Or... have they been walking the line lately? Not sure about that. You haven't said."

Malcolm adjusted the collar of his black woolen trench coat, not bothering to do up the buttons, and tugged on the wrist cuffs at the bottom of the sleeves. These were idle gestures, time wasting little fidgets, but done with such sincerity and ease that one might think he was composed instead of suspicious. He was waiting to see if Clara would crack, only vaguely paying attention as her hand danced off the table to scratch at the back of her neck and then down again.

"They haven't all been bad. Nicola's okay," he said." Well, I say okay. It's really more that she can function reliably enough to get through half a week without coming to my attention."

Malcolm took off his scarf and wound it lazily around his neck. Clara walked forward to adjust either side so that they were equal. Malcolm lifted his head and kept his chin pointed forward, gazing down at Clara without ducking his head like he usually did.

"I only know her from open mic night last month," she said. "You know, that time when you introduced me as your personal trainer?" She spoke with just a touch irritation and only a smidge of an angry sneer.

One side of Malcolm's mouth darted up in a smirk as he laughed. "She didn't believe that for a second, did she?" he asked.

Clara's smile was pushed to its pleasant limit. She shook her head in short twists, her hair moving against her neck. "No, not at all. She's not stupid, Malcolm. And for all the trouble you went through to hide the truth from her, it didn't take long for her to figure it out in the end, anyway," she huffed, all content to keep up her side of this morning tiff for as long as Malcolm handed her ammunition for it.

It was getting far too easy to get angry at him these days, moreso than usual. And properly angry too, the kind of anger that made Clara's hands shake and tears burn in the edges of her eyes. The cause of these arguments were nothing different than the typical shadows that hung over their lives: Malcolm was working longer and later, with less believable excuses every time he uttered them. Clara wanted to press him for answers, but she hadn't quite found the proper words yet - at least, she hadn't been able to find a way to phrase the questions without making it sound like she was scared. Because it wasn't _just _that he was working late: he was getting thinner, his temper shorter, his eyes darting constantly away from the once usually-sought refuge of Clara's face. Tense, and mercilessly high strung, like a wire reaching the end of its line but still being told to give another yard, just one more meter. Such was Malcolm's mood these days, and as sympathetic as Clara could indeed be for him she wouldn't let her heart bleed too long if he wouldn't allow her to know the full reasons _why._

But then Clara remembered what she was doing here today, standing in front of her currently confused, harshly wary husband. She remembered why she was trying to rush Malcolm out of the house in the first place and this, if nothing else, helped her mood lift. Clara had a plan to do, and a prank to commit. Nothing would distract her from it.

_Get a grip on yourself now. Focus. _Clara straightened up and made sure that her smile was pinned to her face again. She flattened her hands on Malcolm's chest and gave him a little pat. "You should be going now. We don't have time to argue."

Malcolm accepted her kisses on either of his cheeks and twice, fast, on the lips. "Don't have time to _argue? _Who the fuck are you and what have you done to my wife?" he asked, laughing again as he returned her kisses. Reaching out to hold her face in his hands, he smoothed down the ends of her hair so that they were flat against her neck.

"I'm your personal trainer, Mr. Tucker. You let me live in the cupboard in the kitchen, remember?"

Malcolm ran his fingers through the ends of her hair again and shook his head, smiling as he turned to leave. "I'll see you later," he said.

Clara nodded and waved him off. "See you later," she called back. "Oh, and happy birthday."

"Was wondering when you'd get to that," Malcolm muttered, but she saw him smile in pure gratitude before he shut the door after him. "Thank you," he said, and then the door shut, and he was gone.

* * *

><p>Malcolm was right to be suspicious of Clara. She had been planning things far too carefully to let it all fail now - even if she only remembered the plan thanks to a lingering gaze left on the calendar on the wall of her classroom four days earlier.<p>

Clara came far too close to dropping the books she had carefully stacked in her arms in her shock as she realized the date. A few books slid off and toppled to the floor, eliciting a series of giggles from the students who had entered the room early. But she didn't care about these snickers or the whispered, furtive conversation that followed. The calendar was the only thing that mattered. Clara strode up to it and ran her finger across the large, white squares of the coming week.

Three days. Just three more days until the 21st of November smacked her square in the face.

_Malcolm's birthday._ Not just _any _birthday. His _fiftieth._

"Oh, _perfect_, just more work to do," Clara muttered, putting her hand to her forehead in anticipation of a stress headache's first pang, getting ready to release the mother of all weary sighs. She wondered if _that _was why he'd been behaving so strange lately. Malcolm didn't often talk about his age, or Clara's for that matter, and the large gulf between them both, but that didn't mean he wasn't _bothered _by it. It could be the one complaint that he actually kept to himself.

Clara did her best to put the matter into perspective as she thought about it for the rest of the day. It was certainly not that the birthday was a problem, and neither were the gifts they gave to each other every year. Birthdays were part of the limited times per year she had a chance to see Malcolm's face transform from its default, weary cast to a tender expression full of laugh lines and wide, tooth-bared grins, the kind that made her heart flutter. And to complete it all, no matter how late either one of them worked, the day would usually end in typical, traditional physical activities involving a surprise or two just to keep the one with the birthday on their toes (even if they were flat on their back with the possible appearance of restraints and blindfolds).

Hiding her smile as the rest of the students came into the room, Clara chewed on the inside of her cheek. There was certainly no problem _there_ at all. The problem was with the _other _part of the birthday traditions: the pranks and who would win them.

* * *

><p>The pranks started late in their marriage, only a year ago. Malcolm had of course been the mastermind behind the first set, and Clara had followed with her strongest counter a year later involving Malcolm's treasured cupboard and a locksmith. But before that had come around, Malcolm's prank for her thirty-second birthday seemed determined to lure her into a false sense of delicious security by relying on his once again renowned culinary skills.<p>

Malcolm started the prank a month in advance to Clara's birthday, falling into the habit of preparing her boxed lunches in a beautiful black and red lacquerware set made of leftovers from last night's dinner (with occasional appearances from the now famous Tucker house Cock Soup). There was also the quick dessert of shortbread cookies, Mars bars, or a Terry's chocolate orange included, which Clara always enjoyed. Sometimes Malcolm would even experiment making designs out of the food, an extra step that she considered pure egotism – still tasty, and the skill involved almost made her feel a little guilty to eat the food, but it was egotism nonetheless. Of course they didn't always come out perfect. Clara had once seen some sketches up in the attic that, after a bit of investigating, led back to Malcolm's deft hand (seeing as it was his signature in the corners of the pages), but whatever talents he once had in drawing had fallen into disrepair over the years. And yet now, for her – and for her food – Malcolm gladly dredged them back up to the surface in this curious, endearing new habit. She couldn't help but be touched.

Clara didn't think to be suspicious, especially since this all started well over a month before her birthday. And she didn't suspect a damn thing until she opened her lunch on her birthday and found an exquisitely crafted, lovingly composed meal shaped in a perfect replica of –

"My breasts."

"Yes? What about them?" Malcolm asked.

Clara could _hear _his grin on the phone, the bastard. "You packed _my breasts_ for lunch."

"Oh, so you ate already?" Malcolm said, and she heard the groan of his chair as he checked a nearby clock. "Fuck me, that was fast. So, how'd you like them?"

Clara pinched the bridge of her nose and continued to talk in as low a tone as she could manage, hoping her anger was being properly conveyed to the other line. "My tits were delicious, Malcolm. But that's not the problem."

"Is this your way of saying thank you?" he asked. "Because it's not sounding like a thank you."

"Because the only thing to thank you for is supreme _embarrassment_!" Clara hissed through her teeth, squeezing her phone tightly in her hand. "And that's actually no reason to thank a person, that's more just grounds to tell them to - to piss off."

"Oh, sweetheart," he purred, clearly enjoying himself and her temper. "You're very welcome. I'm glad you liked the titty bento."

"The – the what?" Clara spluttered. She put her finger against her other ear and scowled. "Say that again."

"Titty bento," he repeated, his grin still dead obvious even over the phone. Clara could picture it perfectly: all teeth and crinkled eyes and heartfelt charm.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"I dunno, I'm not a mealtime interpreter, am I?" he scoffed. "Think it means lunchbox or something."

"Malcolm," she sighed.

"Yes, love?"

"You'll regret this. I promise."

He laughed. "I'm looking forward to it," he said. Clara thought he sounded quite sincere about it too. "And happy birthday."

Clara grumbled and thought about hanging up on him then and there, but with a face as red as the cherry tomatoes he had used for her nipples, and her pride thoroughly burned, she chose instead to tough it out for a few more seconds. Cupping her hand around her mouth to filter the rest of her words, she grumbled, "Thank you very much. And it really was delicious."

"So just like the real thing?" he teased, laughing under his breath.

_That's _when she hung up.

Hours later, when Clara got back home and dropped off the homework she would tackle later that night over a large cup of very strong tea, she knew she had her next birthday prank prepared. The thought filled her with a devilish glee, enough to make her laugh in the privacy of the few hours before Malcolm arrived. Yes – he was going to regret what he did. Clara was going to make damn sure of that.

She sat on the plan for the next few months, all the way back around to the following November, keeping the thought tucked away in the back of her mind as a secret store of comfort. It sometimes made her burst out laughing when she was too tired or annoyed with Malcolm for one reason or another, but she made sure not to do so whenever Malcolm was around. He would of course ask why she was laughing, and Clara would find it far too tempting to tease him with hints about the little act of revenge, and then either he'd guess it or she'd let it slip and the whole thing would be wasted.

Before she knew it, the 21st of November was rearing its head again. Lucky for Clara, this year she knew exactly how to get back at Malcolm once again: hit him where it pleased and hurt, right in the ego.

_And do it with a cake, _she thought.

* * *

><p>Once Malcolm had left for work, Clara picked up her phone and scroll down through the still small but growing list of contacts. Sam was listed near the bottom. Malcolm had given Clara her number shortly after she first learned about his job while they were still dating. He'd done so on the pretense that it should only be used as a back up should he fall off radar.<p>

"_Leave a message with her if you have to, right? Just nothing too embarrassing or perverse, I already told her all about how perfectly charming and refined you are, and I wouldn't want to be proven wrong."_

"_You__ didn't actually describe me as that, did you?"_

"_No, not exactly – I might have said charming. I wouldn't go so far as _refined, _that makes you sound like vacuous, posh monstrosity_. _But I did definitely tell her about you."_

Once Sam finished laughing after Clara explained the plan, she had only one thing to say. "What do you want written on it, Mrs. Tucker? And should there be a card sent with it?"

Clara didn't even have to think about it, but she did have to clear her throat and prepare herself to _say _it. "Er, well - _Happy birthday, cunt, _should... should do nicely on the cake, I think," she said, putting the finishing touches on her hair before she left for work. "As for the card – er, just make sure it said that it's from the Prime Minister. Something short and to the point."

After assuring Clara that she would get it done and would contact her should any promises arise, Sam gave her a quick farewell.

Clara took in a deep breath and finally allowed herself to relax. She did her best to hide her smile as she plodded through the long hours until it was time to leave. Smiling would call too much attention to herself, the way anyone looking marginally alive and in possession of a soul seemed to do at this damned building. And she didn't want anyone to take this little shard of happiness from her. Its sharp, cutting bite and resounding thrill of anticipation was the only thing that got Clara through the day.

This good mood carried Clara all the way back home, up until she received a call from Malcolm. It was around dinner time when he called, and he didn't give her a chance to say hello before he was hissing through grit teeth about the new problem he had to face that evening. A problem that would, in his own words, shave the next twenty years off his life.

"Twenty if we're _lucky," _he added. "Christ, who knows, I might drop dead in the next half hour. Find the will for me in the attic, would you? I need to go through it again."

"So I should be saying Happy Seventieth Birthday to you instead of Happy Fiftieth?" Clara asked, leaning back on the couch cushions and drawing her knees up to her chest. The morbid topic of conversation didn't bother her as much as it might disturb anyone else – she had grown well accustomed to Malcolm's sense of humor by now.

"Very fucking funny," he snorted. "No, I take it back. You should spend your time picking out grave plots and tombstones. Jesus, I hope that's my gift for this year. Please say it is, Clara, I need a bit of cheer to take with me into the evening stretch."

"Sorry, Gomez," she said, doing her best wistful, love-struck Morticia Addams. "I went for something a bit nicer this year, something you can really sink your teeth into."

Malcolm hummed thoughtfully at this. Clara could easily imagine him nodding, his eyebrows darting up high. "Are you in the cupboard again?" he asked.

Clara pressed her lips together, holding her laughter in. "No, Malcolm, I'm at home," she said. "And I'm just about to eat your birthday dinner very clearly _by myself, _I might add."

"You could at least save us some, right?" he said, not quite a complaint but definitely closer to a moan. "And that's not the gift, is it?"

"No, it's not. You'll know the gift when you see it." Clara stretched her arm over her head and yawned. "So what's keeping you late this time then? What's their name?" Clara laughed, replaying her own words to herself. "You know, when I phrase it like that it almost sounds like you've got an inter-office affair going on."

Malcolm swore loudly. "Don't ever say that to me again, right? Okay? Not unless you're prepared to identify the fucking pulp that was once my face because if you joke about that again I just might have a stroke so hard my head explodes."

"That's very reassuring, Malcolm. Thank you."

"No more jokes like that, alright?" he sighed. "Nicola's up against Peter Mannion on Radio 5 Live tonight, and I'll need to be close to the dam in case their combined inept forces starts a flood and fucking drowns us all."

"That sounds like a great way to spend your birthday, Malcolm," she said, rolling her eyes. "And why can't you just listen to this from home?"

There was a pause between his answer and her question. A little one, but a damaging one no less. Clara could feel her heart pressed up flat against her ribs, sending tremors of fear through her body that makes her stomach seize with a hard, cold twist. _It's happened, _she thought, staring into the half-faded reflection of her face in the glass coffee table. _It's finally happened. He's picked work over me._

"It's really for the ease of access more than anything," Malcolm said, talking quietly through the crashing clatter inside her head. Clara wished she could see his face; it was always easier to tell if he was lying if she could look him in the face. Mostly because Malcolm couldn't hold together the seams of deception when he was around Clara even if his life depended on it. Not while he had her eyes to look at, and not while she wore her best, "I'll slap the lies out of her mouth so hard that her grandfather will get a bruise" expression.

"Access to what?" she asked.

"My arsenal of weapons and my trusty stead, of course," he joked. "Look, if she fucks up – and she might; just because there's a microphone in her fucking face doesn't mean this is fucking karaoke night, yeah? – I can pop on over there to stop it, then come back here before the blood has time to soak through the shirt. Can't get car service like that at home, sadly."

"Oh, yeah, you mentioned that the new driver is really fast," Clara said, forcing herself to laugh as she nudged a few tears out of her eyes."So he's working out well then?"

"Yeah, he's not half bad," Malcolm said. He paused again. Clara could hear the tense rush of air as he took in a breath, as well as the thump of his free hand hitting the desk. "I'd be there if I could, Clara," he said, putting all heart and warmth as he said her name. "With you, I mean. At – at home. I want... I _want _to be there. I really do."

"So come home," she said, a sheepish sad command that is far too close to a plea.

"Tomorrow," he said. "I'll try – I _promise_. Tomorrow." Clara thought Malcolm's voice sounded strained, threadbare thin and worked beyond its limit. But Clara wasn't sure.

_Make tomorrow come now. _It was a wild, desperate prayer that went nowhere and was meant for nothing. _Make tomorrow come right now before it's too late, before he really does choose work over me. _Clara shook her head and slapped her forehead, hard. Even Malcolm heard it.

"What was that?" he asked.

Clara didn't answer. _What the hell am I thinking? _"Nothing," she said, drying her face with her hand and laughing again. "Come home when you can, Malcolm. I mean, tomorrow's better than not at all, isn't it?" She stopped laughing, aware of how wooden and stilted it sounded. She was terrified of what Malcolm might say to her barely disguised grief so the only option left was to end it, and quick. "I'll try to stay up for you," she added.

"Best not," he said.

"I don't mind."

"I mind," he insisted. "Don't bother, really."

Clara pretended to consider this. "If you're _sure_..."

"I _am _sure," he said, sounding relieved.

Clara nodded once. "Then wake me up when you get in," she said. "I can sing the birthday song then."

"Oh _Christ_, not again," Malcolm groaned. "Just get it out now so it's over with."

"No, no, it's better when I can see your face get all red," she said, stretching out her legs, listening to the bones pop from her knees down to her ankles. "Besides, I've got a whole dance routine involved this time."

Malcolm groaned again, not entirely in displeasure. "Right, fine. You – you get started on that."

"I will," Clara said, grinning. "You have fun thinking about it. And be nice to Nicola – she's better than the others, isn't she?"

"Yeah," he coughed. "Don't bother listening to it when she's on, though. One of us should avoid an aneurysm."

They both said goodbye with more warmth than usual, and Malcolm even threw in an impassioned, "I love you," before hanging up. As Malcolm made no mention of the cake, and since his mood was so scattered throughout the conversation, Clara assumed the gift hadn't arrived yet. _That gives me something to look forward to at least, _she thought as she tucked into Malcolm's birthday dinner at the table in the front room. _Besides Malcolm coming home, I mean._

* * *

><p>Sam finally called while Clara was rinsing the dishes a little over half an hour later. "Yes, Sam?"<p>

"Hello, Mrs. Tucker," she said, almost making Clara's heart stop. Sam was the only person you know who called her by that name. Clara hadn't even changed it officially, too worried about it getting into the press. "The bakery wanted me to tell you that they will under no circumstances personalise their work with what they consider to be... gendered – er, filth."

_Well I didn't expect this. _Clara sighed, slamming her free hand down on the edge of the sink. "Oh, good," she scoffed. "Are they an activist or a... fucking baker?"

"Sounds like they're both," Sam said.

Scratching an itch that flared up from the muscle twitching in her cheek, Clara closed her eyes, counted back from seven, and tried again. "Right... Can they use an asterisk instead?"

"I'll ask them."

"And the card's fine? Have they got any problems impersonating the Prime Minister in print?"

"Actually no," Sam admitted, sounding surprised herself. "That was the part they liked best, to be honest."

"Perfect," Clara said, although this evening had been far from perfect in her estimation. "Thank you, Sam. I'm – I'm sorry for the trouble."

"It's no trouble at all, Mrs. Tucker," she said, and Clara could hear the smile in her voice. "I'll just... gently remind them that the cake's been paid for and see where the conversation goes from there."

"Call again, please, if there's a problem," Clara said, and they said goodbye and hung up.

Her phone didn't ring for the rest of the night, and for once this didn't make her feel lonely.

* * *

><p>As per her request, Malcolm woke Clara up when he came home – at four in the morning.<p>

"What took you so long?" Clara muttered, yawning into her palm as Malcolm slid into bed next to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nudged the tip of his nose against her neck, sighing low. "Can't have been on the radio all – _all _night?" she finished, yawning again.

"No, that was hours ago," he said, sounding far too awake. He obviously hadn't slept at all, and he was going to be heading back out within an hour and a half to start another day all over again. The thought needled Clara. "Took a car back to the office to make sure the dam held steady – oh and to finish off the cake."

"There was cake?" Clara said, smiling. Her eyes slid shut as she felt Malcolm fit himself around her, his breath tickling her neck and his body marvelously warm against her cold, smaller frame.

"Yes – a cunt cake," he chuckled, loosening his hold on Clara so that she could shift onto her side to face him instead of keeping his arms pinned under her back. Malcolm was looking Clara right in the eye when she slid lower down to be face to face with him, peering blearily into his bright blue eyes. Blood vessels had already popped in thin, crimson strands all along his eyes, and the sight made her heart twist.

"Yeah, that sounds like a cake you'd have," she said. Clara ran her thumb across Malcolm's cheek, cupping his face with her hand. "Was it good?"

"It was fine," he said, almost impatient, nearly bouncing on the bed with excitement. He shifted closer to Clara, brushing the tip of his nose against hers. His lips grazed hers when he talked again. "But d'you know who it was from?"

Clara considered shaking her head – but the moment was here at last, and she wouldn't let it slip through her fingers. Clara chewed on her lip for a second before she adjusted herself so that she was hovering over Malcolm, her hands pressed down on the bed on either side of his shoulders. He rolled onto his back to accommodate her change in position, his hands already moving down her back to take hold of her hips. Malcolm frowned when Clara shook her head and pushed his hands off. Lost, confused, the frown didn't last for long when Clara reached down between his legs, into his pants, and got to work on him.

When he was hard enough, Clara made sure Malcolm was looking her right in the eye as she winked, slid down between his legs, and took hold of his cock. "Lemme guess..." she said, drawing out the two words before licking her lips with an indecent amount of care, well aware of the way Malcolm's breath was hitching and his stomach clenching. Clara waited until he was up on his elbows, the back of his head propped up against the bed's headboard to get a better look before she continued. "It was the Prime Minister?"

Malcolm barely registered her remark. One hand reached out to rest on the top of her head, taking gentle hold of her hair while his fingers pulled tight on the duvet. "What?" he said, stirred to his senses before he let out a sharp hiss.

Clara removed him from her mouth and peered up at him again. "You think that cake was from the PM," she said again, still moving her hand up and down the length of him. She would match the motions to her mouth in a second, once the last part of her prank was done.

Malcolm's response was as unintelligible as she expected it to be. Clara knew she wouldn't get a proper word out of him for the next few minutes, not until she was done and he'd called out her name louder than he did that time in the lift.

Before he left for work after a hurried shower and a change of clothes, Malcolm lingered in the doorway to their bedroom, glaring at Clara.

"Yes?" she asked, buttoning up her shirt.

"Why did you say I _think _that cake was from the PM?" he asked.

Clara waited until her shirt was fully buttoned before she answered him. "Because that's who I'm _hoping _you think it's from," she said, walking straight up to Malcolm without an ounce of hesitation. She wrapped her arms around his neck, darted up on her toes, and gave him a long, deep kiss. She had already rinsed her mouth and brushed her teeth, so Malcolm was only somewhat hesitant when he kissed her back, his suspicions raised again.

"Why would you want that?" he asked, in the sort of tone that said he knew exactly why and just wanted to hear Clara say it.

"Because otherwise the gift's a bust," she said, running her nails lightly over the back of Malcolm's neck, wobbling a little before she regained her balance. "And I don't want to find out that I had Sam gently threaten that bakery for nothing."

Clara waited for Malcolm to start cursing. She waited for his laughter too, hoping that would come eventually. It had been so long since she last saw him really, truly smile. What she got instead was another kiss, a longer, deeper stare with eyes so soulful and blue they made her heart feel too large for her cage, and the following words.

"You win, sweetheart," he said, and then he lowered his head so that his eyes dug straight into Clara's rich, brown gaze. Malcolm held his face as close to hers as he dared without trying to steal a kiss, smiling wide, showing his teeth. "Until tomorrow, of course."

* * *

><p><strong>Notes: <strong>I know some of you have been asking to see more of Malcolm and Clara both intimidating others and running into other characters - well, fret not, dear readers. The next chapter after this, as well as a few others coming up, will make them cross paths with quite a bit more people. But first they have to clear up a few things with Clara's family, and it's not going to be pretty.

That being said, I hope you enjoyed this semi-sexy fluff! Things are going to get a big rockier and tense from hereon out, and they'll be sticking closely to the TTOI-series 3 into series 4 timeline, but I'll try to keep a balance of lighter, fun things so we aren't inundated with sadness.

Lastly, thank you so much for the kind words and the reviews. You're all so sweet and encouraging, it's really helping me out a lot.


	10. The Yuletide Rage

**The Yuletide Rage**

It was a week before Christmas and Clara was angry. Hand-shaking, voice-trembling, shot nerves and threadbare temper levels of angry.

And she'd run out of tea.

"That's it," she said, holding up her hands as if to surrender to this vicious circumstance. "That's – _it. _I'm going shopping. Okay? Shopping. For tea and – and milk. I need milk."

"Milk and tea, yes. Good idea, Oswald. Get to it." Clara nodded, half encouraging herself and half responding, fully aware of how absolutely mad she must seem. But only her goldfish was an observer to this conversation, and Sir Herbert didn't seem to mind what Clara did so long as she fed him and scrubbed out his castle every month.

Trying her best not to gnash her teeth into little pearly stubs, Clara threw on her coat, snatched up her wallet and keys, and stormed out of her flat, pulling the door shut with a loud snap before she did up the locks in an angry twist. She shot past the lift and made for the stairs at a rapid pace, her boots stomping down onto every step so that they echoed up the empty stairwell.

_Seven days 'til Christmas and I've got enough rage in me to char up seven hells, _Clara thought, shoving her keys and wallet into one pocket of her coat, squeezing her hand into a fist. God help her if she ran into any of her neighbours now. She absolutely did not have the energy to play the nice little schoolteacher they all assumed she was - and indeed, usually Clara _was _this way with no problems at all.

Except for tonight.

All it took was one simple, harmless, routine family phone call to force Clara's patience reach the end of its tether, and now here she was, seething and cross to the point where she felt as if everyone she passed on the street outside simply _must _know how furious she was and were just pretending to be ignorant of it. How could they not know? How could they pass by totally unaware of what a horrendously foul mood she was in? It wasn't as if Clara wanted the attention, nor did she crave a stranger's sympathy – she just couldn't understand how something that overwhelmed her so completely could go unnoticed by people within arm's reach of her.

_Why can't they see? Why can't they just – know? _she thought, and not for the first time in her life, either. _Why does it have to be said?_

But these were all dead end thoughts. Clara knew they would lead nowhere and help with nothing, just as she knew she ought to shelve her temper and cast aside all lingering frustrations if she ever wanted to get a good night's rest later on.

_Slim chance of that, _she chuckled to herself, weighing her keys in the pocket of her coat and shuddering against the strong burst of cold wind that whipped around the corner as she took the turn. _Sunday night or not, there's no way I'm heading to bed early. I'll be up for hours stewing over this one._

It was a self-defeating process, this several days' worth of cooling down from a bad temper. Clara knew she was the only one to lose out in such a process, but she also didn't care. If she was going to be this furious, and if she had to hurt this much, then she would rather both be something _she _decided to do, something _she _decided to assume control of, instead of letting it remain in the hands of dear, sweet, godawful Linda.

_Which is exactly what she would _want_ to happen, so I can't _let_ it happen. Understand? _Like Alice, for all the good advice Clara could give herself, she so seldom seemed capable of actually taking it. A pity, that. And yet there was no one but herself to blame.

Clara scowled as she strode into Tesco Express and snatched up a basket from the nearly empty rack in which they were normally stacked almost four feet high. The yearly holiday craze rose up around her with vicious vengeance, goaded along by a last minute sale on nearly every item in the store. Trying her best not to think of her step-mother – and failing to think about anything _but _the woman, naturally – Clara dodged carefully around the angry hordes of shoppers getting into shouting matches over canned spices, mint sprigs, and tangerines. They were out in full force this year, dressed in ugly sweaters, Santa hats, and festive light necklaces that clicked like talons when the person wearing them lurched possessively over their food like a dragon keen to keep hold of his perishable gold. Clara would find it funny if she didn't have to put herself at risk just to get another box of old fashioned English breakfast tea (simple, predictable, but so sorely needed), to say nothing of the battle that would break out when she headed back to the dairy case.

Luckily the stars smiled on her efforts, as they were sometimes known to do. Clara found not one but _two _boxes of the beloved breakfast blend to take home with her, along with a box of loose peppermint tea, which she never quite seemed to finish no matter how many times she bought it every Christmas, but she put in a noble effort all the same.

And so it was with a bolstered heart and somewhat slightly more elevated spirits that she crept carefully back towards the dairy case, falling into step behind a tall man in a long, black woollen trench coat. Clara took a breath. _See? You're calming down already._

_Not that you were even trying to calm down - although _he _certainly should_, she cut in, pulling a face as she frowned and stared at the back of the man in front of her. He was standing incredibly straight, some might say rigid, and his neck was tense, his shoulders locked in as if a metal vise were clamped around the broad bones and thin skin. Her heart went out to him, stranger though he was. Anyone shopping in a madhouse like this with a temper worn past its absolute limit was to be pitied - much like Clara herself, but she wasn't prone to fits of self-pity.

If she were friends with the man, she might give him a warm pat on the back and a nod of encouragement. But again, they were strangers and there was naught Clara could do but gaze at him with an expression of pure sympathy, which soon dropped off her face when it came time to step up to the case and look through what remained of their milk. _Sorry,_ she thought, offering her silent apology to the man as they both approached the dairy case. _ I'm sure you're lovely and all that but a girl's got to stick to her priorities._

There were only three containers of milk left. _G__lass _containers at that, thin and short and probably skim. The stars might have smiled on Clara's efforts for the tea, but they'd lost it all when it came to the dairy portion of the shopping venture.

She tried not to be disappointed. _Get it for now, and find some more tomorrow. It's simple, see? It's absolutely simple._

Clara picked up the bottle and turned to her left just as the tall, black-coated man she had been following made a turn to his right. They knocked into each other hard enough for both of them to drop what they'd been holding in their hands. Down the two bottles of milk crashed, falling to the floor and splattering shards of glass and milk across Clara's boots and stockings, and positively drenching the man's shoes and the ends of his trousers.

Nearby conversations broke off at the sound as people turned to stare, their eyes open wide. Within seconds grocery store workers came over to usher Clara and the grim-faced man away from the wreckage, as if they had all crawled out of the walls in preparation for just such an incident. Caution signs were put up, and a mop was slapped onto the floor by a gloomy looking, string-thin boy of seventeen as the nearby shoppers returned to their routines. All this happened before Clara or the man exchanged a single word.

They stared at each other, Clara having to lift her head back further than she expected to get a good look up at the man. He was quite older than her, or else it was just the lines on his face and his impressive scowl working together to make him look far advanced in age than he actually was. But Clara thought she saw a bit of the colour fading in his dark brown hair, a pale tinge that suggested grey wouldn't be far along perhaps in another year or so. _Stressed, a little older - and tired, _she added, taking the man in. _When's the last time he's slept in a bed?_

Whoever he was, Clara couldn't help but continue staring. Not just because she felt ashamed for having knocked into him – and quite aghast that he had actually done the same to her – but it was also because of his eyes. They were bright eyes, almost blue – well, they were blue in one turn of the light, but then shades of green and storm-cloud grey would come creeping in, and then Clara didn't know what to make of him. All that she could come up with as they continued to stare at each other were words and phrases like changeable, mutable, and bizarrely appealing despite how forbidding he seemed otherwise.

And then before Clara knew it, she was laughing. It wasn't a happy laugh at all. A note of hysteria rang through each chuckle, and try though she might to clamp her hand over her mouth and keep the laughter inside Clara knew she was bound to fail. The stress from being overworked, overtasked, ill-used and forced to endure yet another round of abuse masquerading as advice from Linda's puckered, thin-lipped mouth had left Clara incapable of holding herself under her usual control. And so she stood there, laughing herself hoarse in front of a man twice her age and even more times confused as to what, exactly, was making her laugh to begin with.

At last Clara managed to say, "I _really_ – you know, I _really_ did need that milk."

"As did I," the man said. She noted his accent (Scottish, quite far from home, this one) and the tone in which he spoke: tense, terse, not exactly amused. This didn't stop her from laughing but it did get her to take a breath, stand up straight and focus more on composure than destruction.

_No use breaking down over spilled milk, Oswald. That saying exists for a reason – but probably not this one._

"I'm sorry," Clara said, and she meant it, even if she were still fighting back hysterics. "Really, I didn't see you there. It was an accident." She smiled at him, offering a heartfelt attempt at cheer as well as the apology, and to her tremendous surprise it worked out.

The man ticked his gaze back and forth over Clara's smile, taking in the dimple she knew past girl friends – and girlfriends – had envied her for. Linda always said ruined it every family picture. _"It's like you've got a scar cutting up half your cheek, dear. It's awful – try turning to hide it next time, will you?"_

_No, shut up, _Clara told the nagging little Linda that seemed to thrive inside her mind at random times, especially when they'd just gotten down arguing with each other. She was like a cancer that needed immediate excision, but whose tumescent traces could linger on far longer than the initial exposure.

"Well I can't expect you'd be able to see much from down there," the man said, gesturing to her stature with a large, open hand.

Clara scowled up at him, not saying anything.

He quickly added, "So how important was that bottle to you? You're a bit – " he cut himself off.

Clara smirked, her dimple showing again. "You were going to say _broken up about it_, weren't you?"

"I might have been," the man muttered, conceding this point with a single nod of his head to the side. "I could have been. Maybe."

"So, yeah, you were," Clara said, nodding.

It was the man's turn to scowl again.

The boy who had been mopping up the milk had since moved on to sweeping away the glass. He handed Clara and the tall, older man two complementary wet naps he'd either just nicked from a package down one of the housekeeping aisles or else he kept it on hand for incidents such as this. Clara and the man accepted the help with smiles and thanks. They set about cleaning their shoes, taking turns leaning on the wall next to the dairy case for balance.

"It was important because I'm a sort of – well, I guess you might call me a stress baker," Clara said, picking at the ends of her nylons to unstick them from her skin. She sighed, well aware of the little puddle of milk that had gathered in the heel end of her boot. "I needed that milk for a souffle to take the edge off an otherwise pitiful Sunday. And maybe a cup of tea or two."

"A stress baker?" the man said, scrubbing angrily at the end of one leg to another, cursing foully beneath his breath. Clara's lips tightened at some of the phrases, but she otherwise kept her comments to herself. "What, are your parents a passive aggressive butcher and a domineering candle-stick maker as well?"

Clara blinked, setting both feet down on the floor. She folded up the wet nap in her hand. "No," she said, staring up at the man. "Why? Oh – is that a joke?"

The man glowered at her, clearly wondering if _that _was a joke. Clara's smirk gave her away, and he had no choice but to fight his own grin. "Christ, you must be fun at parties," he teased, half snorting as he said it.

This struck a nerve, though he clearly hadn't meant to offend her. "Don't go to parties much," she said, shaking her head in tense little twists that swung her hair around her face. "Not my thing, really – which, even if it _were _my thing, I _still _wouldn't go, even if I hadn't been asked ever so nicely _not_ to attend because hey, it's just Christmas dinner, isn't it? Nothing special really, it's not like it's _tradition _to get together with the family every holiday. There'd be no bloody need for me to put in an appearance where I'm obviously not wanted and would rather not be."

The repeat of Linda's words came out in a harsh rush. It was as if Clara's mouth acted seemingly without her will at all. She held her head in her hand and closed her eyes, taking another long breath. She could feel the man's eyes on her, surveying her with a steady, curious glance. When she looked up at him again, Clara was relieved beyond her ability to describe to see just how sympathetic he looked. It was as if he'd seen a wound she'd been trying so badly to hide and felt nothing close to curiosity at how deep the mark went or how the gash got there at all, but felt instead a deep, irrepressible sadness that it was there in the first place.

"I'm sorry," Clara said again, trying to laugh and managing to meet herself halfway at a smile. "I... I said all that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," the man said, his voice softer than it had been earlier.

"I'm sorry." _Third time's the charm. _"You _really _didn't need to hear any of that. I'll just... I'll be going, yeah? There's one more bottle in the case, and if you don't mind I think I'd best be leaving with it. Then we can be on our happy way."

"What, you and the bottle?"

"No, I meant us," Clara said at once, gesturing between herself and the man.

If he was amused by this, Clara didn't give herself time to see it. She turned away from him and walked back to the case, treading lightly on the newly mopped floor. A woman with short blonde hair, a sour face, and ice blue eyes darted in front of her at the last second and snatched up the last bottle on the shelf. She lowered it into her cart with deliberate care, where Clara could clearly see another bottle of milk had been placed.

Something inside of her snapped, like a little twig that endures the cold bite of winter only to break under the first warm spell of the season.

She reached out without realising what she was doing and gave the older woman a sharp series of taps on her back.

"Excuse me," Clara said in her best "_I know none of you did the reading and now I'm going to quiz you all on it because I am not in the best mood"-_voice. "Yeah, hi. I was going for that bottle." She pointed at it. "That bottle right there."

"Were you?" the woman sneered, looking Clara up and down in one long tick of her eyes.

"Yes, I was actually," Clara repeated, matching the woman's temper with her own. There was something familiar about her face and voice. It brought Clara back to her temping job days, where she'd made friends with a brash, bold red-haired woman named Donna Noble. They'd commiserated quickly over the deplorable state of the relationships they had with their mothers, and Clara remembered hearing Donna's mother's voice on the phone quite frequently. _This woman's just like I imagined her to be based on that voice. Sour and cross and puckered, like a lemon in a wig._

Clara didn't know why, but the man she'd been talking to earlier slowly approached the discussion on her left, standing just a hand's length away from Clara as if to keep a close eye on the proceedings. She ignored this and continued to speak, addressing the woman in front of her. "And since you've already got a bottle, would it be all right if I just take that other one back?" It was phrased as a question but there was nothing in Clara's face or tone that suggested it was something the woman should refuse.

But refuse it she did. "Hmm, no," the woman said, looking down the length of her nose at Clara. "No, I'll be needing them both."

"For what?" Clara demanded, laughing. She couldn't believe this was happening. _I'm actually getting into a row in a grocery store of a bloody bottle of milk. I thought I was better than this._ But it wasn't just the bottle that was the problem here, it was the principle of the thing.

"For my cats," the woman said, after a deliberately thoughtful pause.

Clara opened her mouth to reply, which was when the man in the black coat stepped in, holding up his hands as if to push back on the older woman's argument. "Look – hi, yes, couldn't help but overhear the little tiff. Pretty sure the drunk Father Christmas out front ringing the bell could hear it, too. You've got a lovely voice, about as shrill as a dental drill."

The older woman reared up as if she'd been struck. Clara chewed on her lip, trying not to laugh.

"Just give the girl the bottle and let the kitties binge from the tap for one night, okay?" the man said.

The older woman glared up at the man as if he'd told her to do something horribly rude. "Excuse me, but who the hell _are _you?"

"A man who knows you don't give fucking dairy products to a cat unless you were hoping to have a nice shit spray on the furniture this holiday season," the man said, each word laid out with effortless grace. Even Clara couldn't help but be impressed. "Is that how you're doing the decorating? Because I offer my condolences to your family if that's the case."

Clara watched as she held a hand out to grip the man's forearm and lower it down, taking his hand down as well, since he was dangerously close to pointing directly into the woman's face. She held her hand there, patting his arm once or twice in a harsh, heavy tap as she took a breath and looked at the older woman again. "Please ignore my friend. He's had a long day and he's really quite a charmer when we're not on the subject of feline dietary habits."

"Your _friend_?" the woman echoed in disbelief, her pale blonde eyebrows darting up to crinkle her forehead. "What sort of self-respecting girl makes friends with men over half their age?" she asked, and the look she gave Clara suggested she knew _exactly _what sort of girl did that.

Both the man and Clara glowered at this woman. _Oh she is so definitely Donna's mum, _Clara thought viciously. _I'd know that harpy voice anywhere._

Clara snatched her hand off the man's arm and pointed right into the woman's face, knowing she had just prevented _him _from doing that – and for a good reason: so she could do it first. "Girls with diverse social circles and bubbly personalities," she said, answering what she knew was a rhetorical question. "Which, incidentally, is the same sort of person who is pleading with you now, ever so nicely, for that _bloody – bottle – of milk._" Clara smiled, keeping her voice low and her expression fixed into the perfect image of politeness just in case anyone looked over to eavesdrop.

"No," the woman said simply, glaring at Clara's finger. "And now if you'll excuse me, I have groceries to pay for. And pets to feed. Happy Christmas."

"Tell Donna I said I'm so sorry her mum's a cow!" Clara hissed as she left. The woman turned around to glare at her once more, but didn't say anything else.

The chorus of _It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year _kicked in from the speakers overhead, filling up the silence that grew in the aftermath of this impressively pathetic row. Clara held her hand to her forehead again and took another long, stabilising breath, tapping her fingers against her scalp. She turned and noticed that the man in the long dark coat was still standing next to her, staring down at her with a curious expression. He looked like he was trying not to smile, and failed at it.

"Quite the charmer, eh?" he asked.

Clara sighed, a gust of air sending her fringe flailing before they settled back down on her forehead again. "Yeah, I did say that, didn't I?" she asked, putting her hands into the pockets of her coat and staring off at a point over the man's shoulder. Her expression said quite simply that she was screaming internally, but when she spoke it was in a tone as pleasant and amicable as ever. "That is definitely a thing I said."

"And a friend, too," he added. He nodded as he ran his hand over his mouth, wiping the smile away as if it were a stain.

Clara forced herself to look him in the eye, wondering if she was going to get a crick in her neck for the effort. "I can – er, sometimes I can say things, odd things, when I'm... Sort of..." she trailed off, jumbling her hands in the air in a wild tangle.

"When you're sort of holding on to patience by a shrivelled strand of bollock skin?" the man offered.

"Yes – well, no. No, not exactly," Clara said, frowning at him. "Not the bollock part, anyway. Are you always this vulgar in public?"

"Do you usually confront hatchet-faced matrons over baking ingredients?" he fired back, smiling again.

"No, you caught me on a bad day."

"Didn't seem too bad to me," he said, shrugging. "In fact it seemed very good."

"... Thanks?"

The man studied Clara for a moment in silence. She took the time to observe him as well, surprised at how easy it was for them to resume their effortless banter even after she had thoroughly embarrassed herself in public. _Not that he seems to mind – if anything, he seems rather impressed. _Clara liked it when a man didn't shrink back from her temper or try to make light of her anger in any way. It was a frustratingly exhausting process, getting properly angry about one thing or another and then having to explain, usually to a man, _why _it was all right to be angry in the first place and why he shouldn't waste a single second of his time on telling her to _calm her tits _or asking, as if he were being clever, if she were on her little _monthly program_ again.

But this man's reaction to Clara's ire had been nothing short of full-on acceptance – dare she even say he embraced the sight of it, as if it amused him on a level that was both personal and unknown to Clara. Whatever his reasons were for doing it, Clara appreciated his endorsement of her semi-annual vitriol-spewing. It didn't often get supporters, nor did it win her much favour even among her oldest and dearest friends.

Gazing into each other's eyes and listening to the final bars of another Christmas song come to a close, Clara soon found herself mirroring the small, almost tender smile the man was showing to her. The lines around his mouth creased his face sharply, throwing his nose into stark observation, but there was something handsome about him all the same. He had a striking face, one that was hard to look away from because of how much life and presence was behind every little shift of expression. Clara, a connoisseur of sorts about putting on the best mask for every occasion, couldn't help but appreciate this seemingly open-book personality trait – appreciate and dearly admire.

"Listen," the man said, his tone measured and soft, as if they were old friends and not barely new acquaintances. "How about I, er... How about I pay for that?" he asked, pointing at the boxes of tea Clara had inside the basket.

She glanced down at them and blinked. "What, seriously?" she asked. "No, please – don't bother yourself. It's just tea, I can get it."

"It's not about the cost – it's about what I cost you, right?" he said, getting the line out with a quickness that Clara couldn't help but be impressed by.

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Clara asked, grinning. And then it happened again, her mouth took off without her head, though it was full to the brim with her heart and its current lofty, steady-beating state. "Because if that's the case then how about you buy me dinner instead?"

"Dinner?" the man echoed back, blinking. She'd knocked him for a loop with that one. The poor man looked like he'd been shot around the moon and back again. "Are you asking me to take you on a date?"

Clara shrugged, pretending it didn't mean much, though on the inside she was screaming again – screaming with mad, wild happiness. "Sure, why not. Let's call it a date, then. I'm free most weekday evenings, but weekends are your best bet."

"Right, yeah – what?" the man said, catching himself. He still hadn't come back down to Earth then. Clara almost felt sorry for him, but it was so worth it, seeing this look on his face and the way his eyes darted around her face in a curious, attentive dance, looking for the crack in the seam, searching for the lie. He wouldn't find any.

She dug into her pockets, pulling out little scraps of paper and receipts. The man handed her a pen, still staring at her in utter confusion, as she jotted down her number and handed it to him with a grin. "See you soon?" she offered, taking a step back as if to walk away.

The man peered down at the number – and then shook his head. "No, this won't work," he said.

Clara's heart almost stopped. She waited, wondering what he meant.

"I don't even know your fucking name, do I?" he added, holding out the pen again.

Clara urged herself not to blush as she took the pen back, overreaching a bit and accidentally brushing her fingers against his own (he had warm, soft hands). "There," she said, passing the pen back and holding out her hand for him to shake. She wanted to touch him just once, skin to skin, but without the usual intimacy that entailed. "I'm Clara. And you are...?"

"Malcolm," he said, shaking her hand. He had a strong grip, and his hand nearly swallowed up Clara's own. Short bones meeting long ones in a tender, warm grip. "Hello, Clara."

"Hi, Malcolm," she muttered out of the side of her mouth, still trying desperately not to blush. He really was charming, oh no. Passing her free hand between herself and Malcolm, Clara nodded slowly, still holding on to his hand. "This has been sufficiently awkward," she said. "Definitely one of my worst hellos."

Malcolm didn't let go of her hand. Clara didn't want him to. They gazed at each other again, lapsing into a comfortable, deeper silence just as _I'll Be Home for Christmas _started to play. Bing Crosby's voice crooned out in the background as Malcolm spoke up again. "Well we'll both get to try again on Thursday. Might be a wee bit busy this weekend you see, what with it being Christmas."

Clara didn't immediately understand him. She was getting a bit lost in his eyes, and the combined pressure of his warm hand and the soft, sombre melody playing overhead made her a bit dazed. "Sorry – oh! Right, that is coming up, isn't it?" Clara took back her hand and laughed, grateful when Malcolm joined in. She hitched the handles of the basket up higher on her arm until it was resting in the bend of her elbow. "Well then – Thursday it is. You just keep me posted on the place and time and I'll... I'll be there."

"Yes, ma'am," Malcolm said.

Clara liked the sound of that. "Best be off," she said, taking a step back, thankfully not bumping into any other shoppers. "Nice meeting you, Malcolm."

He returned her nod, adding with it a brief smile. "It's been interesting, Clara."

Clara turned around. Only then did she squeeze her eyes shut, and let her face break open into a look of pure horror.

"He's not going to call you," Clara told herself under her breath, trying not to run to the check out, though she wanted to put so many miles between herself, the shop, and Malcolm until her embarrassment had burned away completely. "He is definitely, absolutely, one-hundred-percent _not _going to call you, Oswald."

Clara paid for the tea in a perfectly miserable state and trudged back to her flat with her heart sinking down past the heel of her boots. She felt it trailing behind her on the pavement all the way back home, until it had worn itself out into a bloodless, hopeless lump that she would have to pick up and stuff back in again. At the very least she now had tea to help soothe this particular ache.

A day later, just as Clara was thinking of giving up on the pack of essays she'd been meaning to grade about the importance of Elizabeth Bennet's initial rejection of Mr. Darcy, her mobile rang. She picked it up, frowning at the unfamiliar number.

"Hello?"

It was Malcolm calling to confirm and give the basics about the time and place for Thursday's date. He also managed to boost Clara's hope up to pre-holiday levels, making her smile in a way that sent a stretch of warm, comforting light down into the still-bruised tangle of her heart.

Of course he had no way of knowing this, nor did Clara know quite how to tell him just yet. All she knew was that she was tremendously grateful for the tenderness she'd sensed as well as the warmth she'd felt in him, and that she would be keeping her admiration for both under a firm lock and key all throughout Thursday's proceedings.

"So I'll see you at Henry's around seven," Clara repeated back, just to let him know she'd been listening. "What made you decide to go there?" she asked.

"You lost your chance at making your own souffle, so it seemed best to buy you one myself," he said.

"Are you going to associate me with puddings from here on?" Clara asked, suppressing a giggle.

"Just might, yeah," Malcolm said, and she pictured what his face must look like at that moment. Mockingly pensive, as if he were sincerely considering what she said and weighing all of its pros and cons quickly inside his head. "Although to be fair, there are worse things to link you together with, sweetheart."

"Oh yeah?" Clara challenged. "Name me one."

Malcolm paused. "That can wait for the third date, can't it?" he asked, pretending to sound horrified.

Clara was still laughing about it later, long after they'd hung up and she was getting ready for bed.

* * *

><p>Clara had no way of knowing, nor could she even guess, that Malcolm was harbouring very much the same tender thoughts about her that she felt towards him ever since they'd first met. Both considered the other to be an unexpected bit of comfort found in the most unlikely of places, as if their hearts were two pieces of a long lost puzzle that had suddenly been snatched up, snapped together, and fit into place with all the effort it took for a man to blink. Neither one of them knew what it was that they sensed in the other – neither one felt safe in putting a name onto it yet, though <em>strongly fancy and maybe a little too deeply attracted to <em>seemed to fit just fine – but they knew it was something worth chasing, something worth catching and holding on to for as long as they could stand to keep it locked within their hands. They only hoped it all worked out for the best.


	11. The Hidden Letters

**The Hidden Letters**

Only Clara knew about the shoebox in the attic. It was the one and only secret she kept from Malcolm ever since she moved in four years ago, and since it was nowhere near as criminal as other people's vices – addictions, gambling debts, an acid bath full of bodies in an abandoned factory out in the country – Clara felt no guilt whatsoever in keeping the truth from him. _It's just a shoebox, after all._

… _Just a shoebox full of gushingly romantic letters - letters that _he_ wrote. Letters he most certainly does not know survived to this current point in time._

Right. Nothing to feel guilty about whatsoever.

Though Clara may not feel guilt, she did feel the tiniest bite of fear at what Malcolm might say should he discover this box and its adored – and adorable, if Clara were being honest with herself – contents existed under their roof. Doubt and dread told Clara it would not be a ringing chorus of endorsement, that he might scoff at her obvious sentimentality, or perhaps laugh at some of what he'd written, passing it off as little more than maudlin wank. Curiosity and instinct told Clara that his reaction wouldn't be _as _terrible as her old friend fear always whispered it would be. This little voice of reason informed her that Malcolm's reactions would be undoubtedly amusing to watch no matter _how _he reacted, because these letters were almost a sure guarantee to work a bit of red-faced embarrassment out of the man.

_That's a nice thought, _Clara told herself as she lazily tipped her empty mug into the sink. _Keep going with that one, it's certainly a hell of a lot better than anything else you've dug up tonight._

Clara was alone in the house, which wasn't exactly a new thing these days, but being alone on a _Saturday _felt guttingly criminal even to her. And the only one to blame for this isolation was also the one who could cure her of it. _I should show him those letters just out of spite now._

But she wouldn't. A better reason than a spurned heart would present itself, surely.

Clara drifted in and out of thought as she tidied up in the kitchen, plodded up the stairs, and undressed for bed. _How _would _he react to the letters? Honestly, how would he?_ It was so easy to imagine Malcolm breaking out into a series of deeply lined scowls and "protesting too much" grumbles that would come loaded with a charm wholly his own. _Like an angry owl snapping for a treat – or a slightly less disgruntled owl going through a moulting phase. Or is that just how he is when he's gone a few days without a shave? _Clara wasn't certain.

_But it _would_ be funny, that was for damn sure._

While Clara was busy not being the least bit guilty in keeping these emotionally incriminating letters around, proof that Malcolm Tucker was indeed not as fantastically lethal as he presented himself to be, she still took a few extra precautions to ensure that Malcolm's chances of discovering them were slim to none. She had labelled the box with the most dull title she could think of ("OLD RECEIPTS"), and kept it tucked discreetly out of sight with the holiday decorations and that retired kitchen table with the wonky leg they were both determined to ditch one of these days. The tablecloths and several boxes of Malcolm's notes from his early days of journalism that blocked the letters from immediate view were just extra insurance to pacify Clara's mind, just another way to delay the potential inevitable discovery.

Clara frowned at this thought, running her fingers through her hair to work out the loose strands the brush hadn't nabbed. _Be honest with yourself here – it's probably not potentially inevitable. It's most likely absolutely avoidable. _

This wasn't just an idle thought born from sour moods and fearful notions creeping in unwanted. Clara was certainly justified in feeling this way, given Malcolm's behaviour of late. Indeed, the possibility that he would discover the letters was slim to none now, seeing as Malcolm wasn't home much these days, and the rare appearances he put in were usually for the clothes-changing, shower-taking, brief nap-having variety. If he stayed it was for three to four hours, tops. Nothing about these conjugal visits, for that's what it was starting to feel like on Clara's end, joyless and gutted though such thoughts were, could justify a spur of the moment peek up into the attic. She was almost starting to believe that she could plaster the walls with the letters and he wouldn't even notice they were there until a breeze came by and rustled the papers – and even then he'd probably just complain about there being a draught.

_But that's me being unkind,_ Clara decided, staring at herself in the full-length mirror in the room and not quite liking the face that stared back at her. It was a frozen face, a mask of a new kind. Not bubbly, not cheerful, not even happy in a subdued sort of way. She looked empty and flat, the way a mask should be._ Not just to myself but to Malcolm, too._

But that's only because he was doing it first - to her, which was unforgivable on many fronts, and doubly so to himself, which strangely hurt the worst of all.

It was Malcolm who made Clara think of these hidden letters in the first place – or rather, it was his _absence _that put the thoughts into Clara's head_. _More often than not these days Clara found herself on the losing end of his time and attention. It had been an ongoing process, these lapses of neglect, but as they usually lasted in short painful bursts Clara found that they could be endured with the winning combination of gritted teeth and a stiff upper lip. It was her new mask to wear, one she had been expecting with all the funereal chill of dread since she found out who he was, what he did, and that she loved him too much to give him up. And for a time the mask had been enough to see Clara through the worst of the loneliness... But not anymore.

The separations had now become long, sustained processes, and the silence they brought was breached only by a customary phone call or an email dashed off while Malcolm was on the run, loaded with amusing autocorrect errors. And that hurt. It hurt more than Clara knew how to allow herself to feel.

She couldn't understand this change. There had been no foreseeable fault in the relationship, no screaming rows or betrayals, no dismissals of agency and thought or even the slightest disregard for each other as a person apart from their usual shared mockery and power-playing. _But Malcolm knows not to take that to heart, he knows it's all just in fun – doesn't he? Oh god.  
><em>

The more time Malcolm spent out of the house, the more Clara began to wonder what had happened to the man she married. He was getting harder to recognise now, and it wasn't just from the change in his physical appearance. Malcolm had greyed fast and seemed to age most of his life in half a year, not to mention turning so thin Clara could see every hungry shift and fragile fold of his bones even through layers of clothing. But it was the change in his spirit that worried Clara worst of all. Every brief minute that they shared together had a new heightened intensity, as if there were a limit to these stolen moments that was fast running out, winding down to a dreaded finale that only Malcolm could see. It was like a blade hanging low over both of their heads, promising a swift and absolute execution.

The only thing that could possibly be the cause of this change of mood and seemingly new turn of a soul-deep infection was – what else? – Malcolm's work. That old familiar sour, sore wedge that burdened them both since the moment they met. Clara knew that a new minister had been sent over to DoSAC some weeks back but that had seemed a breath of comically fresh air in Malcolm's perspective, judging by how he relayed some details to Clara over the phone or in the rare face to face appearance. That he had to even consider the new appointment at all when he was likewise occupied with the Prime Minister's concerns seemed to give Malcolm a real charge, as if the insult could inflict no other harm but the bitter sting of amusement. And yet no matter how gently or insistently Clara pressed him for details about his work – both those he was allowed to share and those he didn't mind dredging up for her ears to hear – Malcolm's answers were even more terse and poorly explained than they had ever been before.

_He wasn't even this secretive when he was keeping the whole bloody thing a secret. _Not that he'd done that _well, b_ut at least an effort had been made.

"Just the usual stroke-inducing mayhem," was the only answer Malcolm had offered once Clara worked up the nerve to confront him directly about what was keeping him seemingly everywhere else but his own bloody house. And while this explained everything in a simple, single sentence it also said nothing at all. It was just a false front confession with all the trappings of an emotional core without any of the heart.

The more his work dragged at his bones and pulled him from home, and the less Malcolm said when called upon to speak about it, the more Clara toiled to fill in the gaps. She was owed better than this silence, than these scraps of an answer that offered up more questions than they satisfied. She was owed better, and their relationship deserved far better as well. They meant too much and had come too far to only give half a heart.

_It's both our burdens to bear, isn't it? Even if we have to go it alone, it's still ours._

As she got into bed that night, keeping her phone close in case Malcolm called again, Clara tried comparing her best to put herself in the position Malcolm was now finding himself trapped within. Was it like how a fearful thought in the night could fill her with a horror only the looming shadows of their half-empty room knew? Or was it like the way a lonely heart's pillow still contains hidden litres of tears long after they've dried and the grief vanishes? Maybe it was something worse, something like a sweet sting, a beloved poison, an addiction - but Clara stopped that thought dead in its tracks.

"Don't make it worse than it is," she told herself, staring up at the ceiling. But the thought had crept in as calmly as a well-practised sneak, poured its poison-tinged whispers into her ear, and waited to watch every killing word take its toxic effect.

_Is that what's happening to him? Is that how he feels? _The questions dug in deep like a meathook into Clara's heart, tearing at every layer until there was nothing left but hair-thin threads. _Is that why he's leaving me in the dust - because he can't _break away? She didn't know which emotion was stronger, disgust or grief.

But she wasn't always alone. She had to be fair if she was going to feel so scorned, and rightfully so. Even now there were some times – terrible times, painful moments all – where Malcolm could show up home and it would be Clara's joyless task to detach him from her. It was during these times that morning kisses at the door turned into long, lingering affairs that knocked all the bones from Clara's knees and turned her spine to smoke, faint wisps that would vanish within seconds. Malcolm practically had to hold Clara up whenever they kissed now, a chore he quite enjoyed and took quite a bit of pride in considering he was the cause of the collapse. Even with the intruding chill of winter seeping in from the grim-cold wasteland the whole of London had now become, in Malcolm's arms Clara knew she was nothing else but warm and secure, free of doubt and all the lonely night's dark pall. With him she could safely be fire in all forms – the sparks dancing off the slipping flint, the cinders that persist amid the ash-coated grate, and the ever-starving, determined blaze.

It was during these times when Malcolm was home and hers to have and hold and love and grieve that Clara knew for a solid, sure fact that he still felt the same way as he had when they'd first met, when he'd written all those letters. It was Malcolm's ruthless, restless passion that gave Clara's its matching fury, after all. Neither one of them lived in halves nor did they offer their love with the intent to make the other whole.

_We're not incomplete without each other, but we are a new, full self together. _Their hearts were complete in their separate states, but they _chose _to blend, bend, and bleed together as one.

And really, what career could possibly compare to _that_? What was power, glory, money, prestige, and fear-born respect compared to a love that sheltered just as much as it consumed? Clara often dared herself to ask Malcolm exactly that question, especially in the weeks up to and beyond his fiftieth birthday, but the nerve as well as the question itself always seemed to wither en route to her mouth, becoming a docile smile or a tender kiss instead.

_I can't do it, I can't do it - but I want to _try.

Clara had long known that her love for Malcolm made her soft, not just in the sense that it made her susceptible to and quite willing to receive all his charms, but that she became an absolute coward before him as well. If, when they were united, Clara could be a fire in all forms, that meant she could also be the gutted, sputtering flame that ravenously gnawed on the sorry end of its wick, chewing up the wax until there was barely a drop of it left. There was no shame in being weak and vulnerable for someone you loved, or even because of them. It showed that you trusted a person to wield the power to kill you, and to know in your heart, the way the night sky knows the stars, that they will not.

_Now all I have to do is remind Malcolm of that. And myself._

Staring at the shadows of the neighbour's oak tree stretching across the ceiling like a thin, clawing hand, Clara realized with a sigh that sleep was a bust for tonight. Instead of counting sheep, she decided to draw up a little mental trial with Malcolm being tried _in absentia_. Since she was alone, with only the creaking of the house settling against the cold from outside and the mournful, lone barking of a dog down the block, Clara felt safe to say her opening arguments out loud. _Not like Malcolm's going to interrupt me in mid-sentence._

What could she say in his defence? "At least he still calls to say he won't come home – that counts for something. He could just not even bother if he wanted to be even more horrible about it."

"But that's the bare minimum of a comfort," Clara countered fast. "You don't _praise _someone for being considerate – you _expect _them to be. Especially when they're your husband."

"Fair enough, okay," Clara nodded, conceded that point with a pained sigh. "But at least he stays behind in the mornings for more a change of clothes and a quick shower. He still waits by the door to say goodbye."

After a quick, cold pause, Clara shrugged. "Again, that's the bare minimum of _affection. _Since when did scraps of affection make you happy?"

Clara's answer to this barbed reply came back in the smart, striking lash of a whip. "Since I realised how much _my _smallest efforts keep him from swallowing a bullet. I'll take whatever sign of love he wants to show if that's how he feels about me."

The argument died there. Silence fell in the room for the rest of the night, though Clara didn't fall into something like sleep until it was closer to dawn. These ghastly thoughts kept dreams far from her reach, but only because Clara knew they were not far from the truth. Malcolm had all but said it himself.

That thought skirted on the edge of her mind like a snake dart in the grass, until around 4AM it woke Clara up with a jolt. She sat up in bed and stared, trying to gather her mind from the dregs of her uneasy sleep. He _had _said that - he'd said it over and over again. And she had the letters to prove it.

Clara threw back the covers, ignored the cold that seeped up through the floor, coating her skin with a new kind of frost besides loneliness, and walked out into the hall. Standing on the tips of her toes, Clara took hold of the little drawstring that hung at a perfectly reachable height for Malcolm and gave an almighty tug. The panel in the ceiling opened and the little ladder leading up to the attic slid down with a bone-rattling clatter.

It was even colder in the attic than it was in the bedroom, and darker besides. One small slant of pale silver moonlight stretched in to light up only a corner of the tiny, highest room – but it was exactly the corner Clara needed. Taking hold of the box marked "OLD RECEIPTS," Clara tucked it under her arm and climbed back down the ladder, returning to the upstairs hallway. She thought only briefly about setting the ladder back where it was, and struggling to close the panel back into the attic, but her heart wasn't at all in the effort. She wanted the letters in that moment more than she had wanted warmth or comfort or even a stiff drink on an awful day. She wanted to feast her eyes on the old, loving words from the man who held her heart in thrall, because who else was here to look after it _besides _Clara?

The argumentative side of Clara's mind plead no contest and said not a word as she returned to bed with the box in hand, tucking herself back under the covers and pushing back the lid once she were safely hidden beneath the warmth. Her fingers were frozen stiff and wilfully still as she reached inside the box and dug out the first letter.

* * *

><p>The first letter Clara ever received from Malcolm happened more or less by complete accident. Nor was it even a letter, strictly speaking. But that didn't stop her from enjoying it.<p>

She had found it on her first time having dinner at Malcolm's house. It was technically their fourth date. The first three had been enjoyed in the shadowed comforts of the finest restaurants darkest corners, and it had been Malcolm's suggestion that they try for a night in one evening - as long as she didn't mind. Clara had been so startled by this suggestion that she had dropped the glass of wine Malcolm had poured for her into her lap, staining it with a bruise dark blotch that refused all attempts to blot it up.

"It's fine, really," Clara kept insisting, red faced and laughing nervously as she pressed both hers and his cloth napkins into her lap, all the while cursing madly inside her head that she had made such a mistake. "No, _really, _I think it's almost out now."

Malcolm had leaned forward from his side of the table to take a peek. His curious expression dropped quickly into dismay. "Look, I'll pay to have that cleaned, yeah?"

"You don't have to," Clara said at once, shaking her head.

"I know I don't have to," he had argued back, but gently so. "I'm very well aware of what I don't _have _to do, just as I'm aware of what I _want _to do."

Clara had folded her hands in her lap, chewed on the inside of her cheek as the wine seeped down into her nylons, and considered him carefully. "Just this once, okay?" she said after a long pause. "I mean, it is sort of your fault I dropped it in the first place. You don't just spring a house invite all smiles and charm and stupid little half-smirks on a person holding a wine glass."

"You don't?"

"No, you don't."

He laughed, but he quickly turned it into a cough. "I'll remember that for the next dinner," Malcolm had said, regarding her with something close to sympathy.

"There's going to be another one?" she'd asked, keeping her face free from how she felt on the subject. On the inside she was ecstatic.

"Well there really should, don't you think? Have to make up for that, don't I?" he'd asked, lifting his eyebrows as he nodded in the direction of the spill on Clara's lap.

Clara found the first letter when she went to Malcolm's house for the make up dinner. She arrived at his house with dry cleaning bill in hand, as well as a nice bottle of wine she had been saving for a terrible day. And after Malcolm stepped out of the room and run upstairs to answer a call, Clara had come across a scrap of paper left out on the kitchen counter. It was half-buried by a spiral-bound daily planner, as if Malcolm had been looking at it recently and shuffled a few things to keep it out of sight, clearly lacking the heart to just chuck it in the bin.

Now, it wasn't as if Clara were snooping around. She knew she was allowed to be in the kitchen - it wasn't as if shecouldn't help _but _be in there, since it blended seamlessly with the front room where they were eating. And Clara wouldn't have had a chance to look at the letter at all if it weren't for Malcolm leaving. He had been a marvellously gracious host for most of the evening, except for dashing off to take that call. Only then did a look of guilt creep into Malcolm's face, one Clara didn't know how to place.

"I need to take this," Malcolm had said, standing up in a rush. He didn't look at Clara once.

"I'll just wait here then?" she had called after him, getting only a thin-lipped, swift nod in return.

After a few minutes of waiting, Clara wandered into the kitchen thinking to find a wine opener and some glasses, having watched Malcolm pull a few down from a cupboard to the left of the sink when Clara'd asked for water earlier. That's when she had noticed the planner and the note beneath it, but it wasn't what kept her attention.

Her name was written across the top, making Clara stop dead.

_Just a peak, go on. It couldn't hurt_. Clara listened for the sound of Malcolm's return and caught only snippets of a muffled didn't sound pleasant. Garbled rage about the enormity of shit that was being forced into his ear, as well as the steady, hard pacing bearing up and down the room overhead, suggested Malcolm wouldn't be back any time soon.

_Best read it now and read it fast. _Pressing her fingers against the end of the note, Clara tugged as gently as she could to free it. And what she found didn't disappoint.

_Curry? Can't pass off as home made. Too strong a smell._  
><em>No pizza, have some fucking dignity.<em>  
><em>Chinese? Not terrible. Not hating that. May still be hungry. Still not passable.<em>  
><em>Soup… is for fucking orphan asylums. No.<em>  
><em>Broiled salmon with… what? Something. ! <em>

And hurriedly scrawled in at the bottom in a sloppy, slanted hand were a few more lines that made Clara's chest feel ten times too small for the heart inside. _Back up meal required in case of allergy. Or if she doesn't want to risk mercury poisoning._

And beneath _that _was the even more sloppily written: _Nix that. All set. Thank fuck._

Clara hid a smile behind her hand, shaking with silent laughter. It was far from romantic by any stretch of the imagination, but the note was definite evidence that she hadn't been the only one to panic about having her over his house. _That definitely helps. I knew he was putting up some kind of front when he called to ask about having fish. No one can be _that _relentlessly charming without some hard effort put in._

There was also something strangely sweet about a man who talked to himself in a note, writing running commentary as he fussed over what to make for dinner. It showed a totally different side to the man Clara had been chatting pleasantly with all evening. Ever since she set foot through the door Malcolm's charm had been present to its full, endearing force. With a sort of thrilling precision, he cracked jokes and kept Clara vastly entertained by his own stories in between listening to her dish out small bits of information about her life and work. But Clara hadn't been entirely swept off her feet - no, she was smarter than that, thankfully. She noticed as early on as their first date how gently Malcolm could deflect from revealing too much about himself in almost every conversation they had. She wouldn't begrudge a person for wanting to keep their secrets, nor for a personality trait that demanded they not be so overtly forthcoming about personal details - she was, after all, aware of her own problems in this regard - but she _had _been confused.

_He asks far too much about me and gives even less in return. _But this note was now crucial evidence that something lurked beneath Malcolm's confidence, something similar to Clara's own experiences with anxiety and all its poisonous unease. And she couldn't help but be drawn to that. What's more, it gave her an idea.

When it came time to leave, Clara turned back from the door just as she were about to open it, snapping her fingers as if shewere trying to jog her memory.

"Yes?" Malcolm had asked, hands in his pockets, looking at Clara with his head turned down and tilted so he could eye her somewhat askance.

"I forgot something," she lied, and she did it well, with a smile to boot. "It's in the kitchen near the sink. Mind just getting it for me?"

"My kitchen?" His face was as blank as his tone.

"Yes, your kitchen," she said. Clara made a little bracket with her two pointer fingers, spacing them about five inches apart. "Little sheet of yellow lined paper about this big, got my name written right on top. Can't miss it."

It took him a moment, and then he realised. Malcolm's mouth opened in a little wordless shape. He continued to stare at her.

Clara watched the penny drop. Her smile became a grin. "Don't be cross with me, please," she said, guilt finally starting to creep in. "I was getting the wine glasses and I saw it there on the counter. I only took a little peek."

Still Malcolm said nothing. After a moment he turned away, disappearing into the kitchen with three long strides, only to return before Clara's panic could set in. He had the note in hand, and he was scowling at it as he read the list over again.

"We'll call it a fair trade, right?" he said, handing Clara the list but not letting go even when her fingers had closed around it. "I've got your dry cleaning bill and you've got in your hands the only living proof of a Tucker Tit Moment."

Clara laughed, sputtering wordlessly. "What?" she managed to say, just as Malcolm let go of the note.

He smiled. "I'm not the one who stuttered, am I? You heard. Now keep that close, don't let anyone see it. Otherwise I'll know just who to call up if that gets round to the press."

"Is that the only way I'll hear from you again?" Clara had asked, folding the note over into careful little squares as she tucked it into her purse and zipped it shut. "If I leak something to the press?"

Clara hadn't immediately understood the look on Malcolm's face. It seemed like a muscle in his face had stretched too far and then snapped back in an odd twitch that made his smile slip away and his gaze turn suddenly cold, fierce. In retrospect, Clara knew exactly what that look was, what it meant, what created it, and how she had wounded him without meaning to do anything close to that. But at the time all she could think was that this look worried her a far cry less than it fascinated her.

"No, you won't have to do that," Malcolm had said, and it was the warmth of his voice as well as the fire in his gaze that took Clara's smile away. How could anyone stand being so grave and so damned sincere? How could _he_? "I'd like you not to, in fact."

"Okay…" Clara had said, trailing off and taking a cautious little step back, feeling as if there were two layers to the conversation and she were coasting by on the shallow surface.

Malcolm reflected for a second. "I meant you won't have to work hard for something I'm… genuinely happy to give," he said.

It was that little pause that did it. That little pause killed and charmed Clara into stepping forward, all but leaping the last few steps as she stood up on the tops of her toes to give Malcolm a short, sweet kiss.

"Likewise," she had said as she pulled back, dropping down to her feet and gazing into his eyes. There seemed to be stars in them now, as if Clara had him all in thrall with no more effort than a few words, a press of the lips, and a trembling, eager heart wrapped up in both.

When Malcolm kissed Clara back, holding her face gently between his hands, his touch light and his skin so delightfully warm, Clara knew it was Malcolm's way of paying her back for that little moment of enchantment. A fair trade, indeed.

* * *

><p>The second letter was an actual letter, and this time Malcolm made certain Clara saw it.<p>

Clara had come home from a particularly gruelling day at Coal Hill to find the pale white end of an envelope peeking out from under her front door. Assuming the worst, that Linda had come over to leave one of her "_Just in the neighbourhood and I thought of a few more things I didn't like that you said to me at Gran's last week"_-notes, Clara sighed and forced the key into the locks with unnecessary roughness, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She'd have to ask around to see if there was a way to stop Linda from being admitted into the building.

Stepping carefully over the letter as she entered her flat, Clara tilted her head to the side to get a better look at what was written on the front. Her name was on it again along with a scratched collection of Xs, Os, and what could have been a lone, misshapen heart. _Definitely not from Linda. _Linda had a stone where that particular organ should be.

Just as Clara picked up the letter, her mobile rang. It was Malcolm.

"Did you get the letter?" he asked.

"It's in my hand right now," Clara said. "I only just got in, haven't even taken my coat off yet."

"Oh now that's a familiar sound," he mused, his voice sliding into a softer tone.

"What sound?"

"_That_ sound," he said. "That bleak croak of a voice. It only comes out the mouths of shell-shocked soldiers or bollocked ministers. You hear it around here all the time."

"Bollocked _who_?" Clara had asked, frowning. This was still in the time before she knew what Malcolm's job precisely entailed, though she could guess it had something to do with journalism considering how he'd reacted to her press faux pas.

_And now add politics into the mix, _Clara thought, reflecting on this with a cold stab of shock. _Oh god, is _he _a minister? He can't ever meet Dad. Never. Not ever. No.  
><em>

"Ah, it's only a saying," he'd said, brushing off the question and the confusion packaged with it. "Are you going to read it?"

"Are you going to give me a chance?" Clara snapped.

Malcolm said nothing.

Clara chewed on her lip and sighed. "I'm sorry," she said at once. "I'm sorry that – that was not nice."

"It's not problem. Really, it's not," Malcolm said. "I've got thicker skin than that, I think you'll find." His voice faded off at the end, as if he had pulled the phone off his ear. "Hey, two secs. Another call."

"I'll be here," Clara said in a sort of toneless song, tearing at the envelope with two hands, propping her phone to her ear with her shoulder. As she waited for Malcolm to return, she unfolded the letter – written once again on yellow lined paper – and started to read.

_Sweetheart, _it began, _You dashed off in such a rush last night, so I couldn't mention a few key points from last night's conversation._

_1: Yes there is a more pointless activity on this planet than sales planning, and that's cricket._  
><em>2: If you ever even jokingly call us a foodie again, I'll pop by your flat dressed in fuck all but chocolate sauce with a whipped cream cock sock. Might just do that anyway. It'd keep you on your toes.<em>  
><em>3: Make all the jokes you want, really, go on. It'd take a wee bit more effort than that to get through this old skin. Or in your case, no effort at all.<em>

_Look. You cut down to the heart of me. Take care of what's left in there._  
><em>Xs and such.<em>  
><em>M.<em>

"And we're back," Malcolm said in Clara's ear just as she got through reading the letter a second time. "Apologies."

"Malcolm, can you come over tonight?" Clara asked, her voice steadier than she imagined it would be.

He paused. "Yes, well, I was thinking about it," he said.

"Please do," she said. Then she caught herself. "I mean – not the thinking, you've done that part. I meant the coming over bit."

Again Malcolm paused. "Should I be worried?" he asked.

"No. There's nothing to worry about at all, I promise," Clara assured him. She closed her eyes and took a breath, praying for strength. "It's just that I think I'm actually – maybe – probably starting to fall for you just… just a little bit. And I want to see your face to make sure that's all accurate and set."

"What, are my voice and my painstakingly delivered words not enough?" he asked, but Clara could hear him laughing. How easily could she picture his smirk: that little corner of the mouth twitching to show a flash of teeth that made his bright eyes gleam.

"No – well I mean yes, they are, but your face is still wanted around here regardless," Clara said, biting on her lip again. Nervous habit, that. But words had a way of forcing themselves out when Malcolm was on the receiving end of them. Clara couldn't quite keep her mouth shut if it was a choice between revealing some part of herself to him and staying hidden for the sake of a familiar fear. "You have a way of brightening up a room whenever you walk in. Must be all that silver you're getting in."

The kiss Clara had given Malcolm when he arrived half an hour hence started at her front door, led into the living room, and soon expanded to roaming hands and muffled moans. Clara had known Malcolm for a couple weeks by this point, and she was more sure with every passing day that this had absolutely _not _been love at first sight – it had technically been love at spilled milk_._

It was for this reason as well as those kisses – and his warm, strong hands cupping Clara's face, stroking her back, holding on to her waist with a grip that was always so gentle, so painfully gentle – as well as the fact that other people had done it in a shorter amount of time for even less reasons, that got Clara to work up the nerve to ask Malcolm to stay the night. And he had, of course he had, but that was a tale for another time.

* * *

><p>The third letter came along with a bouquet of stargazer lilies, hypericum berries, powder blue delphinium and lush, palm-sized, powerfully perfumed peonies. It was after Clara found out the truth about Malcolm's job in those awful, weary days after the shock of it had worn off and left Clara wondering just how many recent breaking news stories, most of them horrible, some of them just horribly embarrassing, had passed across Malcolm's desk first.<p>

_If that's what he's letting get out, just how much is he holding back? Can he even do that? _Clara dreaded to ask.

Sticking out of the flowers on a little plastic pick was a card addressed to her. It was marked with an even larger collection of Xs than the second letter had been.

_Clara -  
>Not my words this time, but they're meant from me to you, and that's the heart of of it.<em>  
><em>'Draw the curtains, leave the world outside!<em>  
><em>There must be rest for all this weariness.<em>  
><em>Let me annihilate myself upon your breast<em>  
><em>And find the solace of a grave!' <em>  
><em>X.<em>

Clara had called Malcolm up to thank him for both the poem and the flowers. "I didn't know you read Baudelaire," she had said.

"Didn't know I did either," he'd said, distracted. "What this about?"

"The flowers and the card," Clara said, flicking her fingers against the latter, making it sway back and forth in the bouquet. "Did you happen to forget that I caught you reading _Les Fleurs du Mal _while I was making us breakfast last week?"

There was a pause. It lasted long enough to make Clara giggle.

"How long, thereabouts, would you take the piss if I said yes?" Malcolm asked.

Clara chewed on her knuckle to force the laughter back in, composing herself as best she could. If Malcolm could manage to wield an air of solemnity, then so could she. "Not too long," she said. "Have you got five minutes to spare? Might have to upgrade it from a piss-take to a proper shout."

"Five _minutes_?" he echoed, stunned. "Christ I could come twice and have mopped it all up in that amount of time."

Clara shut her eyes and counted backwards from five. _Don't imagine that. _"I'm just learning new things about you all the time, aren't I?" she asked, sighing. "I didn't know you were into – well, _that. _I don't have any de Sade on the shelf, just so you know."

"Ha-ha, Yes, yes, very fucking funny," Malcolm said. "You're welcome, by the way."

"I said thank you."

"Didn't catch it."

"No, I expect not," Clara teased. She walked into her living room and dropped down onto the couch, taking comfort in the misshapen, reliably comfortable cushions. Some of them were starting to take in the scent of Malcolm's cologne. "I can practically _hear _your mind churning away as you try to find some way to use a _Venus in Furs _quote for the next one."

"Next one what?" he asked.

"Your next letter," Clara said.

"Oh, is that what you're calling it?"

Clara blinked, frowning. "Why… What are _you _calling it?"

"Oh, I dunno. Something like practice."

"For what?"

"Nothing really," Malcolm had said. But he was lying. Clara knew it at once, but she wouldn't find out why until four weeks later when he asked her to marry him – but that was also a tale for another time.

* * *

><p>Letters four through fourteen were hastily blotted bits of tenderness scrawled on corners of bills, the coffee-ringed centres of napkins, and more yellowed, musty Moleskine pages. Some even made an appearance in between the margins of op-ed columns, particularly a returning series about how every law-abiding, moral-possessing citizen of Great Britain ought to return to the lost imperial virtues that were the country's cornerstone. Malcolm usually wrote the more filthy letters on those sets, and Clara would be lying she said she had expected nothing less.<p>

There weren't many parts worth quoting directly from these letters, as they often consisted of a variation of the phrase, _"Love you, miss you, breathe easy, and take it steady,"_ but the thirteenth one had a rare, heartfelt confession worthy of mentioning. It stretched over two pages front and back, written in an even smaller, cramped hand than Malcolm's usual penmanship. Malcolm given the letter to Clara on last year on Christmas morning, a cold, cruel winter when she finally cut all ties to her parents and would henceforth accept only a customary greeting from them around birthdays and holidays. They hadn't bothered to call that day, and Malcolm had sat up half the night listening to Clara alternate between crowing happily and crying miserably about it.

The letter was left out on Clara's nightstand next to a plate of heart-shaped shortbread biscuits and a hot mug of tea. Clara woke up to the sound of Malcolm cooking breakfast downstairs, singing tunelessly along to Christmas music. She listened to him for a while before she turned her head and noticed the note.

Holding her breath tightly inside the anxious bramble mess of her chest, Clara reached out to pick up the note.

_Here's a thought that haunts us a bit – what is it that bleeds and aches and sighs but has no wound to show for the trouble? I think I know. Do you? Well, time's up. It's a lover. And if you haven't keeled over just yet, I've another little bit to tell you._

_You asked if I liked what I do for a living, if there was anything worthwhile to get out of it. And I told you to come back and say how you felt after you'd punctured your eye sockets with sewing needles. It wasn't a threat, that. It was wrong, very wrong, and worst of all it was a misdirection. I'm sorry._

Of course you already know the answer by now. You always saw more in me than most, and you know even more than you see, which is an awful fucking lot, and most of it's awful I expect.

_But to tell it to you straight: _I don't fucking know. _And that's about as terrifying as knowing I could hurt you – could and did. And won't willingly do ever again._

_Still with us?_ _It's too much sometimes – you know that, don't you? It's too much and not enough and it's all I can do – but Clara, you're always enough. Always, everything. How do you do it? Why don't you stop? Save some of you for yourself._ _There's so little I've left to spare, so little that's worth a damn – how did you end up with all of it? How do you find ways to make more?_

_Point is, whatever's left in me that's good loves every part of you, even if_ you _don't think you're__ good – because it's you. And how could I not?  
><em>

* * *

><p>Alone in bed a year almost to the day of this letter's arrival on her nightstand, Clara read it over again, too sick at heart for tears. Where had this Malcolm gone, she wondered. Or was he buried down deep somewhere, locked out of sight so even the sweetest, strongest kisses couldn't coax him out to the surface again?<p>

_Can I get him back? I should be able to – I could if I wanted. _Did she? _Of course I do. I'll always want to. But can I?_

Clara threw back the covers and greeted the pale grey Sunday morning with a stone-still expression. Snow was starting to fall outside in small, cotton fluffs. She watched it gather along the windowsill outside before she pushed herself out of bed and walked over to the bathroom, ready for a shower.

_Can I? _she wondered again, staring at herself in the mirror, maudlin and resigned, face heavy in mourning all the sleep she had lost. There was really only one way to find out.

"It's time to risk that grumpy owl's wrath," Clara said to herself, smiling at her reflection. It didn't meet her puffy, dark-circled eyes, but Clara didn't care.

As if on cue, or perhaps by some miracle of aligned, merciful stars, Clara heard the front door open. Malcolm's voice called up the stairs, shouting her name.

"I'm up here! Just going in the shower," Clara called back, watching her face transform in the glass. All the life Clara had lacked for the past twelve hours returned at once, the flint finally catching hold of the tinder to make all those determined sparks into a respectable little flame. And all it took was hearing Malcolm's voice to change her thus. It couldn't be so hard to return the favour for him, then.

After the shower, and after Malcolm had explained that he had the whole morning free – "No meetings, no breakfasts, no pre-lunch lunches, no fucking cancer-spewing hacks to impress" – Malcolm joined Clara on the couch, expecting to catch up or watch the telly or perhaps even cuddle. But none of these things happened.

The moment they both got settled on the couch, Malcolm fell almost instantly asleep with his head on Clara's lap. His pale thin lips were open, letting out faint sighs that were on their way to proper snores, but he kept twisting in his sleep and forcing himself back awake again, flinging his eyes open wide to peer up at Clara.

"Sleep if you have to," Clara told him each time he did this. "You must need it, otherwise you wouldn't keep nodding off."

"I'll sleep when I fucking want to, alright?" he'd said, but without any heat.

Patting him gingerly on the head and offering Malcolm her kindest smile, Clara said, "Sounds just a bit childish, you know."

"Good. Means I'm young somewhere."

"At heart? Usually people mean they're young at heart."

"No, not here. Somewhere far away inside where it's dry."

"… The spleen?"

"Young at _spleen_?"

Clara shrugged. "Well you're always venting yours. It should be pretty well turned out I think."

After staring at her in absolute incredulity, Malcolm turned his head to the side and kissed Clara's thigh for that joke, choosing silence as his response.

Clara had a book laid open on the arm of the couch, a book she fully intended to read if she had a chance, but if Malcolm was going to make a habit of kissing parts of her then the book was going to end up more as a prop than anything else. As Clara skimmed the pages with half of her attention, she gave the top of Malcolm's head long, lazy pets and pats, passing through his short hair with the barest edge of her fingertips. They both had their particular vices and little touches and gestures that would guarantee ecstasy. Hers was a kiss on the neck or Malcolm's mouth at her breasts, and Malcolm's was – well, basically the same. But head scratches seemed to be quite appealing to him as well. And it definitely seemed to be working right now. Malcolm hadn't moved from the couch or Clara's lap since he sat down, though he'd delayed both long enough to loosen his tie, shrug out of his suit coat, and kiss the top of Clara's head just before he settled down against her.

As if sensing Clara's thoughts, Malcolm's eyes snapped open once more. He stared at Clara, his gaze all fury and fire that made her heart feel far too large for the body it was in.

"Good almost-morning, Malcolm," Clara murmured, smiling.

He closed his eyes, pressed the heels of his palms against them, and yawned loudly. "Is it morning?" he asked, shaking his head. Clara waited until he lowered his hands before she answered, wanting to look him in the eye. She had missed looking at them this close.

"Sunday morning to be precise," Clara said.

"Christ, _already_?"

Clara clicked her tongue in mock dissatisfaction and turned a page. "Did you lose track again?" she asked, giving him a comforting little pat on the head. "It's a Sunday, Malcolm. The twelfth, to be exact."

Malcolm blinked again, staring up at the ceiling with his eyebrows folded over to contrast with the deep curve of his frown. "Friday were the budget policy meetings," he began, speaking his thoughts out loud in a low voice. "Then the book launch luncheon. Again. That didn't take long at all, but it was as messy as watching young Benjamin chomp his way through a fucking Mars Bar."

Clara paused. "Did that have anything to do with all those messages you kept sending me, asking me to meet you in your office with an ether rag?"

"I did that?" he asked, snorting with a brief laugh.

"Yes. You gave explicit instructions to keep holding the rag over your mouth until you fell and cracked your head on the desk."

"I also said we could take turns, make a bit of a party out of it," Malcolm said. He smiled, delighted to have remembered.

"To which _I _said it sounded like you had a good whiff already."

Malcolm's smile deepened as he watched Clara laugh, taking in the sight and sound as if it were the warm steady glow of the summer sun. After a minute he returned to his senses and lapsed off into thought, remembering again. "Saturday I had all hands in at the office. Had to stop the Mirror from running that bit about the PM getting locked in a primary school bathroom."

Clara's laughter broke off. "How did _that _happen?"

"He kept turning the knob the wrong fucking way."

"A knob having trouble with a knob, imagine that," she mused, shaking her head. "How did you get them to stop?"

Malcolm gave a careless shrug. "Let slip a few crumb trails leading to some back bencher's latest tryst. Might have arranged for them to get a table right next to the cradle-robbing action."

Clara took her eyes off the book and pinned them down flat to Malcolm's own stare. He wasn't looking at her, but the continued gaze Clara gave him made him finally meet her eyes. "You can actually do that?" she asked. "Can as in… You _would_ do that. That's something you would actually do?"

Malcolm held his fingers against his chest. "_I _can't personally, no," he said. "Reflects just a wee bit poorly on us, don't you think?"

Clara scoffed.

"But I have my ways," he added, ignoring this. "Ways and means."

"Well stop with the mean ways," Clara said. "It's not your hill to die on. It's just a job."

"Just _my _job, yes," Malcolm said.

Clara flipped a page and settled down against the cushions, putting her nails to Malcolm's scalp in light, painless scratches. He murmured appreciatively at this, and a few minutes lapsed by in silence before Clara dared to break it again.

"How was that story any better than the one about the PM?" Clara asked, curious despite herself.

"It's not if you're being honest with yourself," Malcolm said. "But it _is _when you remind the mincing twat reporting that their own affair is one email forwarding mishap away from reaching his husband. Where did I leave off?"

"Saturday."

"Yes, Saturday. Right." He paused, frowning again. "That's when we had the speaker phone dinner, yeah?"

"Precisely," Clara said, squishing her fingertip against his the end of his nose. He batted Clara's hand away with a light slap and a shake of his head, but she had seen his smile. "You dripped tomato sauce on some quarterly figures and blotted it dry with that tie I bought you last Christmas."

Malcolm peered at Clara with a cutting gaze. There it was, the disgruntled moulting owl look again. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

Clara smiled. "You came home for about thirty minutes last night for a shower and a change of clothes," she reminded him, wondering when it was he'd last slept. _Did he seriously forget he did that? _"I saw the stains on the back of the tie. Shame on you, Malcolm. Trying to bury the evidence in the bottom of the hamper."

"Can't keep anything from you, can I?" he grumbled, but he was smiling again.

Clara nodded. "And don't you dare even try," she said.

_Now's your chance. Do it._

Continuing to stroke Malcolm's hair, Clara shut the book with her other hand and sat up straight. Malcolm peered up at her, curious but distractedly so, as if he were content to just admire her in silence for the rest of the morning. And it was certainly a tempting thought – but Clara had a job to do. She wouldn't be distracted.

"Speaking of keeping things from each other," Clara began, but she didn't get any further than this before Malcolm sat up with a start, gazing wildly into Clara's eyes.

_Don't get distracted, _Clara told herself. _Here's your chance. So do it. _"Do you remember all those letters you wrote to me back before we got married? And then those few after?"

Malcolm's face seemed to crumble and build up at once, all the fever of his tension breaking just as life and light returned to his eyes. "Of course I do, yeah," he said, speaking right from the heart back into yours. Malcolm reached out to take Clara's hand, stroking it with the pad of his thumb. "I wrote them, I hope I should fucking remember them."

Clara stared at her hand held so gently inside of his. Before she could answer, Malcolm cut in first.

"I thought you'd forgotten all about them."

Now it was Clara's turn to stare wildly. "Are you joking?" she asked, laughing nervously. "Why on earth would you think that?"

"Accidents happen, don't they?" he asked, but he didn't give Clara room to answer before he was going off again. "Things that once mattered most, things that held the entire fucking grand, miserable process can slip down through the cracks before you know it, before _they_ know it even." Malcolm's eyes turned glazed, and he looked ready to cry but his voice didn't break, didn't tremble at all, and Clara knew he wasn't just talking about the letters anymore. "Next thing you know they're buried. Brushed off. And they don't even know it." He laughed. It sounded like a bite. "They have no fucking idea."

The look he gave Clara was both so pitiful and so pitying that she found it hard to breathe. Tears were flaring up like ice-cold daggers in the edges of Clara's eyes, but she kept them trapped there by sheer force of will. _I won't cry in front of Malcolm. I won't make his pain about how I feel. _"Then wouldn't it be easier to just… leave? Cut and run, and leave all that dead weight behind before it leaves you?"

Malcolm stared at Clara with a look of horror. "What d'you mean?" he asked.

"What do _you _mean?"

"Us!" he said, and something about that almost made him laugh. As if he were nervous, afraid. "The fuck did _you think _I meant?"

"_Your work," _Clara wanted to say. Wanted to say but didn't. _"Your work and that whole poisonous life at number ten."_

"I meant us too," Clara said, scraping her teeth along the inside of her cheek. "I was just nervous – it… Well it sounded like you were trying to tell me something horrible."

"I _did _tell you something horrible," Malcolm said, still staring at Clara but the horror had subsided into a kind of dull shock. "I just fucking said how the one thing that mattered is the one thing I let slip away, didn't I?"

But Clara knew that wasn't exactly true. She reached out for Malcolm's other hand and held it tight, stroking her thumbs along the ridges of his knuckles.

"You were also talking about work, weren't you?" Clara said, looking at his hands and not his face.

Malcolm's fingers folded around Clara's, squeezing hard. Not to hurt but to plead. "A little," he admitted, his voice hoarse.

Clara nodded, saying nothing.

Malcolm leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. Clara closed her eyes before Malcolm did, and that's when the tears came out. The sight of them seemed to steal Malcolm's breath, but the little gasp lasted only for a second.

"You're not dead weight," he whispered, every word like a kiss that could steal the ache from every wound. "Have you got that?"

Drawing the tears back up inside, Clara hunched over and hid her face against Malcolm's chest. "Sure, Malcolm," she said, listening to his heart. "I hear you."

Malcolm wrapped his arms around Clara and held her hard enough to make her bones ache and her blood sing. "Why did you keep those letters anyway?" he asked, leaning his cheek against the top of her head.

"Because I liked knowing how much you cared," Clara said. It was as simple as that.

"Likewise," Malcolm said, running his hands up and down Clara's back. "Why d'you think I wrote them?" he chuckled. "Just to get into your fucking knickers?"

"Somewhat, yes," Clara conceded with another nod. She sat up, shrugging out of Malcolm's arms with a gentle twist. "But I also knew you were sincere about it, so I didn't mind so much in the end, really."

Malcolm gazed at Clara with a look that was so similar to how he'd been when they'd first met. It was as if he'd never seen anything like her in all the world and took a grand pleasure in keeping her in his sight, observing and learning and keeping track on all the different layers that, when folded over, made a person as startling as they were adored.

What Malcolm said next cracked Clara's heart clean open, the words striking along the fault line that had been running through her for weeks. "I can't even pretend to understand your faith in me," he said. "But I want you to know that I appreciate it. I always have."

The words spilled out of Clara before she realised they were alive inside, demanding to be heard and used to heal. "Because you cut down to the heart of me, Malcolm. And because you always know to take care of the part of me you find in there."

Malcolm paused, considering this with a thoughtful frown. "That's one of mine, isn't it?" he asked.

Clara grinned, ducking her head as she looped a little strand of hair behind her ear. "Yeah, that was yours," she said. "Not my words, but they're from me to you and that's what matters."

"That's mine as well!" he pointed out, laughing. "Got anything else you want to take while you're at it?"

Clara shook her head. "No, I think I'm good for now."

"You're welcome, by the way," Malcolm said, smiling.

Clara leaned in close and pressed her lips to his cheek, moving her head just a little to the side to whisper: "I haven't even started to thank you yet."

A few minutes later, Malcolm was all but tripping up the stairs after her.

* * *

><p>Later, before Malcolm left for his afternoon tasks, Clara ripped out a piece of paper from her address book and hurriedly wrote the following inside.<p>

_Legions of reveries I'd unleash_  
><em>after arming all to the teeth<em>  
><em>for love of you.<em>

_Legions of wars I'd win_  
><em>to keep the Furies far at bay<em>  
><em>for love of you.<em>

_And in the aftermath of legions,_  
><em>what little remains of my heart<em>  
><em>to keep and care and spare from<em>  
><em>returning grief, I'd give over and all<em>  
><em>for love of you.<em>

Clara hid the paper inside of the suit coat Malcolm had picked out to wear that day. She smiled blithely as he kissed her goodbye, promising to be home for dinner this time.

About an hour later he called.

"Did you write this?" he asked, and read the poem off.

Clara smiled dreamily, having just woken up from a nap. "Read it again, would you? You have such a nice voice for poetry."

"I asked you a question. Is this one of yours?"

"Yes, Malcolm," Clara said, yawning into her hand. "Wrote it up for you as a belated thanks for all those letters."

Malcolm didn't say anything. And then, after a long, poignant moment – "Oh _bollocks_."

"What's wrong?"

"Well there's no fucking way I'm able to top that, right?" he scoffed, but it didn't take him long before he joined in with Clara's laugh.


	12. The Secret Life Inside

**Notes: **Hello again~ Just to quickly address a few things -

Thank you so much for all the kind words and messages you've been sending me in reviews and on Tumblr! It means so very much to me that people are enjoying this story and the relationship. I can't believe I even like it as much as I do, and the fact that my first attempt at a romance_ isn't awful_ astonishes me.

I've had a review or two asking if I was going to include more characters, write about their first time together (hee!), or show scenes with Malcolm meeting Clara's family. The answer to all of these questions is _yes_. I have all of the chapters planned out in advance and I write them according to said outline, so really the only thing now is just patience on both of our parts regarding when these things will happen. I can tell you right now (without spoiling anything) that upcoming chapters should include some more characters from the Doctor Who universe, though in what capacity I can't say because, well. Spoilers.

Another thing I wanted to mention (and will be bringing up again later on) is that I am very seriously considering turning this into an original work for attempted publication (and indeed have an outline for _that _all prepared, too). So if you find yourself really enjoying this story then I'd highly recommend finding a way to save the chapters to read at your leisure. I believe there are ways to do that.

A third and final note is that this is the first chapter that I'm going to put in some kind of linear order. Consider this a kind of "part one," and the next chapter is going to pick up where it leaves off. I had to split it into two because otherwise this one chapter would've gone well over 20,000 words and who the hell wants to read something _that _long? No one, heh.

Sorry for the long note and for being annoying, now here's the chapter!

* * *

><p><strong>The Secret Life Inside<br>**

Something quite bold and brash and probably a little foolish happened around the time Clara threw the bouquet with the second letter away. She decided to confront Malcolm about a problem that had been nagging at her for quite some time now, ever since she and Malcolm had come to the unspoken agreement that their relationship was as sincere as it was exclusive. With this comforting fact in mind on this particular Saturday morning, Clara squared her shoulders, took a breath, and finally worked up the nerve to ask Malcolm a question that stopped him dead.

"So what _do _you do for a living?" Clara asked, peering over her shoulder as she crossed the kitchen to start making coffee.

Malcolm had been following close behind Clara with the vase full of dead flowers, but the sudden question froze him in mid step. The expression on his face looked as if he had hit a solid wall, and he stared at her in a strict absolute silence, unable to answer.

One glance at Malcolm's expression was all Clara needed to know that the question had thrown him utterly, leaving him stunned. There was something a little amusing at seeing him stand so perfectly still, as if his brain had jammed up and entered a sort greyed out _Temporary out of Service _state. It made Clara feel just the tiniest note of sympathy considering he was also starting to get sick. Malcolm's nose was even redder this morning than it had been all week and he had been sniffling ever since he woke up, alternating it with coughs that rattled deep in his chest.

Malcolm's impending head cold combined with the dumbfounded look on his face was just one more bit of evidence Clara had been collecting to say that yes, indeed, her impressively charming, foul-mouthed and marvelously insightful was also fully human. No matter how much he glowered or sneered about the world and some people in it he was still not above such small, miserable things like head colds and surprising questions.

"I'm sensing it was something I said," she joked, smiling at him. He really did look a bit funny standing there, bleary-eyed and still rumpled from bed.

Clara walked over to Malcolm and gently took the vase out of his hand, not wanting him to drop it on the floor and create even more of a mess to clean up. She gave him another quick once-over, then frowned as she turned back to the bin. The swivelling lid opened and shut with a fast slap and down the flowers went, sharing their resting ground with cold, damp teabags, coffee filters, crumpled up papers, and a few mint wrappers. The mood in the room teetered uneasily from her side (confusion and a bit of amusement) with Malcolm's (a keen curiosity that was always restrained, choked). His eyes were astonishingly alive as he looked Clara over. It was as if he were trying to slide his gaze under every bit of her face to find some fault. He didn't find any.

After a few seconds of this treatment, Clara couldn't help _but _laugh. "Seriously, Malcolm. Enough," she said, unable to hide her grin. "You're being ridiculous."

It was her laughter that did him in. Clara knew that her smile could often break Malcolm from his grim, grave states the same way his could for her. "Well if I am being ridiculous it's only because that question was such a brilliant fucking inspiration for it, yeah?" he asked. Without relaxing his frozen iron pose, Malcolm grinned at Clara. It was his real smile – all teeth, bunched up eyes in an impressive fold of crows feet and forehead wrinkles – and though it might not be typically handsome it was a dearly adored sight to Clara regardless. Raw and true and alive, that's what Malcolm's pure smiles were in her mind.

"Your moods could give a girl whiplash if you aren't careful," she said, giving Malcolm a playful push with her knuckles.

Malcolm's long fingers wound around her wrist in a slow caress. He used it as leverage to pull himself closer to Clara but she held her ground, refusing to cave to that heavy gaze or the warmth of his other hand reaching out to fan his fingers across her back. Clara watched, still determined to be composed, as Malcolm's smile evened out with a sort of unconscious flick of his tongue from his top lip to the bottom. He let go of her wrist and placed that hand on the small of her back, nudging her closer to his chest.

Standing close enough to knock knees, Clara took a breath and leaned back against Malcolm's hands. Settling in against him, she moved her eyes down from Malcolm's gaze to his crooked smile. "This is an impressive amount of overreacting for a totally harmless question," she said. "_You do _know that, don't you?"

"I had guessed that," Malcolm said, nodding slowly. "But your response was so delicate and subtle I didn't want to make any assumptions, you see."

Clara shook her head. "Diversion tactics," she began, just as Malcolm's gaze moved in a slow crawl across her lips then down her neck just in time to see Clara gulp gently.

"What about them?" he asked.

"You're doing them," she said.

"_How _am I doing them?"

"With an awful lot of nerve – and you're only doing it to distract from the glaringly obvious fact that you have yet to answer my question."

Malcolm chuckled. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"Yes, it is." Clara jabbed a finger into his chest. "So answer."

"I'm only dragging it out because the answer is supremely disappointing," Malcolm admitted.

_That's possible. _But Clara wouldn't be deterred. "I'll be the judge of that," she said, patting Malcolm's chest. "And that still wasn't an answer."

Malcolm stared at her for a long, quiet moment. He took a breath, paused again, and waited until her eyes were locked on him before he began to speak. "It's a very boring, deeply unsatisfying, morally impoverished career that's about as fun as a fucking vasectomy," he said rapidly. His tone was clipped, as if he wanted to get the worst over with and the words well out of the way in a painless, fast pace.

Clara mulled this over carefully. There was really only one job that could be like that. "So... Politics?" she mused, staring into the distance over Malcolm's shoulder, not quite seeing the room anymore. "It's sounding a bit like politics to me – unless this is just a guessing game of some kind?"

"It's not," he said at once. He looked strangely livid.

"Not what, not politics or not a game?" Clara reached up to loop her arms around Malcolm's neck, pressing flush against his chest. His eyes were narrowed into a curious stare, and there was a flash of grit teeth beneath his thin, pursed lips that made her pause. Malcolm wasn't uneasy, no, but he was definitely on his guard.

"Either one, it doesn't fucking matter," he said, but he had paused just a beat too long. This additional delay only made Clara scowl. But then Malcolm added, "Pick one, whatever you'd like. It's not important."

"So it _is_ politics_,_" she said. "Right. Okay. Journalism _and _politics."

Malcolm's frown far surpassed hers. "How'd journalism get into this?"

"You seemed a bit touchy about the press when I made that joke the first time I had dinner at your place," she said. "Did you forget it? I didn't."

"Well of course I was touchy," Malcolm replied. "It was a poor fucking joke, wasn't it?"

Clara ignored him. "Politics, journalism, and misery..." her face bunched up as she gave this all a good deal of thought. "You know, you might be right, Malcolm. That does sound like a boring place to work."

"Because it is," Malcolm said, not playing along. "And your understanding of that simple fact is greatly appreciated."

Clara shrugged. "Don't mention it. Though getting the answer out of you was a lot more difficult than it ought to have been. You know that, don't you?" She didn't understand why Malcolm laughed so hard at this, nor did she really have a chance to ask. Unfortunately Malcolm would have to leave for work in a little bit, despite the fact that it was a Saturday morning.

Clara was only recently starting to come to terms with the fact that Malcolm's job kept him at the office – wherever this office was – more than it seemed to keep him bound within any domestic territory, to say nothing of the gruelling hours in which he was confined to a suit and tie. There were very few jobs she could think of that would demand such dedication of their employees, and as she didn't want to guess wildly in the dark about something that really should have been a simple ask and receive process, Clara had brought the topic up this morning in the hopes of clearing her confusion away. How disappointing that Malcolm hadn't been willing to help with that.

Before he left, Malcolm kissed her hard as if to make up and pay back for the awkward conversation they had shared before the sun had fully cracked its head over the horizon. The kiss was coupled with a sweet caress as his fingers trailed down the side of her face, and he waited to see her smile before he turned at the door.

"See you later," he said.

"See you. Take care."

But just because Malcolm was leaving didn't mean he was going to take the matter with him.

* * *

><p>After an angry shower (in which Clara spent most of it frowning under the showerhead and the other half of it having pretend arguments with herself), Clara emerged from the steam-clouded bathroom with a plan. A silly plan, but a plan all the same.<p>

_I'll just call his office line and see what I can work out from there, _she thought_. _And it really should be as simple as all that. Malcolm had given her the number to his office, both the direct line and the line to his personal assistant, only a few weeks back. _"__Use it if you ever need to get in touch,"_ he'd said, and then quickly jotted down the second number. _"__And this is for when it's absolutely important. That's Sam Cassidy, my assistant. Great girl, you'd like her. Told her all about you so don't worry about having to come up with some bullshit cover story to avoid the truth."_

"_Okay, so... Two things. You... want me to use your assistant's line to reach you for important things?" _she'd asked, staring at the two numbers scrawled out for her. _"__And to follow up on that, you have an _assistant_?"_

"_Yes and yes."_

"_Right, because that's normal."_

Clara didn't think she would ever have to put either number to use all that much, but her strange conversation with Malcolm that morning had made it clear that desperate times would call for a desperate measure. _Or at least, perfectly acceptable measures were called for during perfectly awkward situations._

Although Clara had never spoken to Ms. Cassidy before, once the preliminary introductions were out of the way (done with all due haste and polite cheer), she found it quite easy to get on with the other woman. Clara was surprised that she didn't even sound confused when Clara mentioned she was calling about a favour.

"Ms. Cassidy –"

"You can call me Sam," she'd interrupted. "I prefer that, actually. Please."

"Right, er. Sam, quick question. What is your work address?"

And Sam had told Clara without hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But before she had time to react to hearing _Number Ten, Downing Street, _Sam was firing off a question of her own. "Did you want something delivered for Malcolm?" she asked. "He's fond of tangerines if you're thinking about a fruit basket."

"No – I mean, well, I was thinking of actually erm... Dropping by myself. He forgot something at my place last night, and I think it might be important." Clara closed her eyes as if that could make the lie sound more convincing. "Is that, er... Is that okay? Can I do that?"

Sam's pause lasted only a few short seconds. "I can have you scheduled as a personal visit," she'd said, and Clara heard a few taps and clicks in the background on her end of the line. "You'll need a photo identification of course, standard procedure. Normally Malcolm would have to vouch for you in person but – well, I can sign off on that. And I'll be needing a general time frame of when to expect you."

"Oh well that's... sudden," Clara stammered. "How about... in an hour?"

"Alright," Sam said, as if there were nothing wrong with this last minute arrangement whatsoever. Clara's head was starting to spin, full to the brim with the same number repeating over and over again in a louder, brutal cacophony. "I'll see you in an hour, Ms. Oswald."

"See you." Clara hung up the phone – and then dropped her head down to the table with a hard thud.

An hour later Clara had somehow managed _not _to lock herself away in a panic at the thought of what awaited her, but to do exactly as she had planned. _Just get in there, call Malcolm out for the needless dramatics, hear a little of what he's got to say, and then come back home for a nap. _It was certainly the oddest plan Clara had ever made for a Saturday, to say nothing of the location.

_Number Ten, Downing Street. Number Ten... oh god. Imagine the look on Dad's face if he could see me.  
><em>

Clara shook her head and sank down lower in the back of the cab. _Don't think about it. Just... don't think about it – or, if you have to, think about it like this. It's just another place, isn't it? It's got walls, I imagine. Walls and ceilings... Lights... Chairs. Other basic examples of standard furniture. Nothing special – except for the fact that it's a bloody government building._

Well that certainly didn't help. Clara closed her eyes to shut out the passing streets and buildings, suddenly feeling sick. Her mood improved only a little once she arrived at Number Ten, through no small effort on Clara's own part. She took a long, steady breath and closed her hands into fists. The pressure of her nails in her palm made it easier to shut out the swell of anxious thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her composure.

Sam greeted Clara with a warm smile and a strong handshake before she passed off her visitor's pass. "Keep that in full view, please. Wouldn't want you carted off before Malcolm can see you."

Clara laughed. "Right, yeah. Wouldn't want that at all, would we?"

Sam turned on her heel and motioned for Clara to follow her down a brightly lit hallway. With a mixture of frayed nerves and irrepressible curiosity, Clara began to look around in quick little glances. The inside of Number Ten looked no different than the house of someone's rich aunt. Nice carpeting and a lovely interior design, with complementary and deceptively warm colour schemes for the walls and artwork adorning them. Fresh flower arrangements dotted several surfaces, and there was an understandable sense of tense precision flowing through the air, as if the atmosphere within the building had adapted itself to every meeting conducted under its rafters. Clara may not have been within the direct heart of government, but she was certainly within one of its major organs – a grim thought that made her cringe.

_At least Sam's nice, _she thought, keeping her eyes focused on Sam's back as she followed a half-step behind. _That certainly helps. _Sam's warm voice matched her welcoming smile, and she had an air of enviable poise that suggested she was completely unaffected by where she went to work everyday. Clara decided to follow Sam's example as much as she could manage, keeping her back straight, her shoulders strong, and her face composed.

It was hard for Clara to tell if anyone was looking at her, the obvious outsider, considering she didn't make eye contact with anyone else that passed by on the trip to Malcolm's office. The thought of attracting even the slightest bit of attention was distressing enough to make a sharp wedge of fear gather all of Clara's nerves in a knot, making her stomach roil and heave. Her breathing came low and steady, but it would have been much more natural for her to crouch down and hide her face in her hands.

_Too late for that now, _she thought, following Sam around a corner and taking those final few steps to Malcolm's office. The door was already open, and Sam was waving her inside with a few short snaps of her hand. Sam waited until Clara had stepped inside Malcolm's office before she gave another smile. It was sweeter than last time, as if she could sense how nervous Clara was beneath the mask and cheer.

"Malcolm should be back within the hour," she said, one hand on the door handle, ready to pull it shut behind her when she left. "Is there anything I can get for you while you wait?"

"No, I think I'll be all right," Clara said, twisting her fingers together into a cradle. The knots in her stomach were still giving rise to her fear, and as Sam was still looking a little concerned Clara knew that the blood had left her face, making her paler than before. "I'll just hide behind the desk and pop out when he comes in or – or something."

Sam laughed once. "Brilliant," she said, shaking her head. "Well, I'll be off. It was nice meeting you."

Clara could only nod as Sam left, suddenly unable to speak.

All at once the sides of Clara's neck fluttered like a trapped bird, keeping time with her pulse. She was alone now, which was somehow both a relief and a terror. It helped to know that Sam had thought to shut the door behind her, preventing anyone who passed in the corridor outside from seeing in. But even behind the closed doors Clara knew she couldn't let down her guard.

"Just do what Sam said, yeah?" she muttered, needing the comfort of her own voice to help push away the panic. "Have a seat, relax, and wait it out."

Clara walked over to Malcolm's desk and took a seat in his chair with a hard thump. The leather was cold and stiff beneath her, and the chair itself was a bit difficult to turn. A few insistent twists and two firmly planted feet later, Clara managed to turn the chair away from the door and towards the wall behind Malcolm's desk. There was a long cabinet pushed flat against the wall decorated with forgotten books, crystal paperweights, mounds and mounds of papers, and a surprising array of plants. Wire-thin pale yellow Moth orchids were in the centre of the display space, flourishing proudly under the deep golden lights. In the corner to her left by the windows Clara could see a healthy pair of spider plants illuminated by the pale lace-filtered sunlight pouring in through the windows. Both brought a strange amount of life into the otherwise untidy, Spartan-looking office that seemed destined to drown endlessly in paperwork.

Taking heart at these little signs of life, the orchids and the foliage both, Clara turned the chair with another great effort and faced the front of the room again. Scattered across any flat surface was an impressive assortment of cardboard boxes packed with folders bursting full of papers, memos, charts, and lists whose full details she couldn't quite make out from where she sat. Undoubtedly these were important documents considering they were taking up most of the space in Malcolm's office, but Clara couldn't begin to see how he could keep track of all this. The boxes didn't even have labels on them.

There was a porcelain bowl on the coffee table in the centre of the room, which acted as a separator for two large leather armchairs that looked as unyielding as the one Clara was in right now. Sure enough, just as she expected, there were several tangerines in that bowl. Malcolm must have been picking at them recently; Clara could see bits of their peels on his desk next to a round amber coffee stain, a cap-less pen, and an envelope decorated with idle doodles.

All of this – the plants, the lace-filtered light, the tangerines and doodles – put a nervous smile on Clara's face. Malcolm's work office wasn't at all what she had expected considering how he had described the job to her just that morning. It was clear by looking the place over that he had worked hard to leave some brief personal stamp behind, even if it was in the form of untidiness. Yet the oppressive atmosphere of the whole building was as present as ever, as if every second that passed clung to the stiletto-thin surface of a tight-rope and any step, even a measured, carefully calculated one, could send a person hurling down fast over the edge. It set Clara's nerves on edge just to be here and she could only imagine what it must be like to stay here for hours, daily, or be made to work here for years.

_It would kill me, _Clara thought without hesitation. _It would absolutely kill me - or at least kill off something important._

Just as Clara was starting to take a keen interest in the bookshelf, wondering whether all those books were really Malcolm's or if they were a sort of "came with the office" collection, she heard a familiar Glaswegian accent coming from down the hall. Malcolm was back, and he would be here in any second. With the few seconds left to plan her move, Clara forced the chair to face away from the office door and held her breath.

Malcolm's voice arrived well before he did. "Listen, son, the only weight you're throwing around here is that steroid gut you've still got crammed into a fucking man-girdle, hey?" A pause. "Yeah, see that you do." A shorter pause. "I'll see you at ten." Malcolm stormed into his office, elbowing the door open with the same arm that was clutching yet another thick stack of papers to add to the fray already in the room. He scowled mercilessly at his phone before shoving it into the pocket of his suit and turning to look at his desk. He froze.

Clara was struggling to get the chair to turn to the doorway again, feeling increasingly foolish the more she tried and failed to move. Malcolm waited for her to turn the chair around, staring with a hollow glare that completely masked his thoughts_. _"Hello again," she said. Clara folded her hands in her lap and smiled at Malcolm, waiting to see what he'd do next.

Malcolm pushed the door shut with his free hand and held it there, keeping the tips of his fingers poised against the wood. He shifted his weight from one long leg to another and coughed once, a restless sound. Still he said nothing.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you are not happy to see me," Clara said.

"How did you even get here?" he asked, his voice low.

Clara studied Malcolm closely. He was deceptively calm and focused, his work mask well in place, all its effects long since settled in. Was it always so easy for him to change when they were apart?

"Well?" he pressed, nodding sharply, leading with his nose.

"I got here by car," Clara said.

"Yes, very funny, sweetheart," Malcolm scoffed. "But _why_?"

"Well it's a Saturday and I'm not working... And your heavy-handed evasion this morning set off just a few warning bells," Clara said, laying all this out with an even voice. There was just enough of an edge to her smile so Malcolm could know she was serious and more than a little annoyed. "Unfortunately you left before I could do anything about that. So... here I am."

Malcolm watched Clara place her hands on the armrests again. He still refused to relax. It was hard to tell which emotion was more prominent on Malcolm's face: shock or fury? _He doesn't have much of a leg to stand on if he's cross with me, _Clara thought. Then she caught herself. _Unless that's just his work face, a permanently furious snarl._

Clara leaned forward, digging her nails into the armrests and holding on for extra strength. "Why were you hiding this from me?" she asked.

Malcolm considered both Clara and his answer carefully. Just then, someone knocked at the door, a rapid, eager staccato of knuckles. "Fuck off," Malcolm said on reflex.

Whoever was on the other side of the door left in a hurry. Clara hoped it wasn't Sam.

Guilt hit her like a slap to the face along with a new emotion, one Clara had never felt at this point in her relationship: regret. _I really shouldn't have come here. I should have just left it at the phone call to Sam, then confronted Malcolm later. _But it was too late for that now.

Instead of sinking down to the floor in the fully miserable puddle that matched her current mental state, Clara forced herself to her feet and stepped out from behind Malcolm's desk. Clara paused within an arm's length of Malcolm, tilting her head back to hold on to his gaze. "You gave me your office number, remember? Yours and Sam's. You said I should call in an absolute emergency, or if I had to pass along a message that couldn't wait. Well, I did have a message to pass along, and it _was_ a sort of emergency that couldn't exactly wait 'til you spent the night again."

"So Sam knows you're here?" Malcolm asked.

"She gave me the directions," Clara said. "And she may have given me this fancy little visitor's pass, too." Clara showed it to Malcolm, her smile losing its edge and becoming much more shy. "I asked her to help me, so don't bother getting cross with her. It was all my idea."

"Why?"

_Now _that _should be obvious, _she couldn't help but think. That Malcolm even had to ask was slightly troubling. "Because I wanted to know why you lied," Clara said, staring Malcolm down. The longer she stared the more the world around her seemed to fall away, creating a black curtain that blotted out almost the entire room, leaving only Malcolm's eyes and his worryingly startled expression for Clara to focus on.

Clara continued. "I also may have quite reasonably wanted to know what sort of job could be so important that it makes my boyfriend work so bloody hard nearly every day," she added. She couldn't help but notice the way Malcolm's mouth twitched at the word _boyfriend_. He had teased her for using it a few times before, when it became obvious that they were heading towards a more committed, serious territory than bumping into each other at a Tesco could have previously indicated.

And in that moment, standing there in his office, Clara finally understand why. _He doesn't think it fits him. He doesn't think the word belongs to him at all._

Clara reached up to stroke the side of Malcolm's face, taking note of the lines around his eyes and mouth, the thin veins that flexed in his temples. "I'm not joking when I make all those comments about you going grey, you know. It really does feel like you're getting older right in front of me, and the list of potential causes is honestly quite small."

Clara pulled her hand back, noticing the way her touch seemed to spark a fire in his eyes that hadn't been there when he first walked in. Malcolm's shoulders heaved as he took a breath, straightened up, and ran the edge of his fingernail across his mouth. He glanced at the chairs towards the middle of the room, a thought occurring to him.

"Let's sit down, yeah?" he said, pointing to them. Just as he did, the papers in his folder all slid out. They splayed across the floor in a soft hush, some landing in piles thanks to being clipped or stapled together, whereas others fluttered out in a wide arc. Both Clara and Malcolm stared at the mess, too frustrated to laugh.

Clara was the first to crouch down and begin collecting the papers, flipping some over or turning them right-side up with quick twists of her wrist and fingers.

"_Don't –_!" Malcolm began to say, a tense note of pain moving through his voice. It matched the expression that shot across his face.

Clara sat down on the backs of her legs and peered up at him. "Don't you yell at me, Malcolm," she warned him.

"I'm not yelling," he said in a loud voice. The veins in his temples were showing again. Something about the sight of her holding what were clearly important documents seemed to be nudging him once again to the very edge of his temper. Clara noticed this, but she still couldn't understand _why._

"Well you could have fooled me!" she fired back, eyes narrowing as her teeth clenched. Clara made her hands into fists for a brief second before she forced herself to let go and take a breath. "I won't read anything, okay? I don't even know what the hell half of this is about."

Malcolm ran his hands through his hair, dragging his nails across his scalp. "That's not it," he said, his teeth clicking at the end of the sentence. "That's not the fucking problem here._"_

Clara watched Malcolm take a knee and help gather up the papers. "So what _is _the problem?" she asked, handing off little piles of sheets each time he reached out for what she had. Clara made sure not to touch his hand, not wanting to make contact again.

His answer was simple and direct, the way all harsh truths should be. "I never wanted to see you here," he said.

Something mixed between a scoff and a laugh bubbled out of Clara's mouth. "Oh, that's nice. _Really _nice, Malcolm. Thank you."

"Didn't mean it like that," Malcolm said quietly. The change in his tone startled her, but it wasn't enough to smooth Clara's temper over. Not yet.

"Do you think I wanted to come here?" she asked, noticing that he was keeping his eyes deliberately pointed away from her face. "Do you think I wanted to go digging behind your back for answers you didn't feel like giving me yourself? I can tell you right now the answer to_ that _is a flat, firm no, Malcolm. It's not exactly the best way to spend a Saturday morning, wondering why my boyfriend is dodging around a perfectly harmless question – and yes, I said _boyfriend_ again," she added with a stab, noticing his reaction again,_ "_because that's what you are, whether you like it or not."

"Right, let's break that entire, structurally unsound argument down, yes? The first bit's a blatant assumption," Malcolm said, his voice still low, his eyes still pointed anywhere but at Clara's face. "The second is close to out-right fucking slander. Makes us sound ungrateful."

"Then how about you _tell me_ what you are?" Clara challenged, passing another large mound of papers over to Malcolm. Her fingers brushed against him in that moment, and they both drew back with a start.

Clara stared, stunned. Malcolm's hands were shaking. Ever so slightly, yes, but there was a noticeable tremor running down through the long stems of his fingers right up to the tips. With this in mind, looked at him with a new purpose, noticing how much he looked like a wire strung too tight, or an arrow tensing in the bow seconds before being launched. Malcolm's surface composure was just that: all surface and shallow, a mask with peeling paint and cracked bone keeping it all in place.

_He's just as nervous as I am._

Clara waited until Malcolm's eyes moved up to meet her gaze before she reached carefully across the small distance that separated them, curling her fingers over the top of his hand. Clara squeezed it tight, offering what comfort she could without knowing which words would be best to say. But maybe it wasn't about knowing the words already. Maybe it was time to search for them instead, to ask Malcolm to once again offer a glimpse into his life the way he'd previously avoided.

"Malcolm... What's wrong?" Clara asked, making sure to keep her eyes on his face and her expression free of suspicion.

He glanced down at Clara's hold on his hand rather than holding up his end of the stare. She watched as Malcolm shifted his weight, clearly not comfortable staying crouched for this long. He sniffed again, and pressed his lips down tight to suppress a cough. "Let's get this mess sorted before we start that conversation, yes?" he said.

Clara nodded. That sounded fair.

The ID badge that was clipped onto Malcolm's belt caught the light pouring in from across the room, the momentary glare caught her attention, drawing Clara's eyes down to the laminated little square. _Malcolm Tucker, Director of Communications._ The man in the picture, a much younger looking version of the one within arm's length of her, had rich dark brown hair, a chillingly harsh expression, and just a mere glimmer of life in his bright eyes. Several years separated the Malcolm that clara knew and loved (yes, loved, may as well say it, even if she was only admitting it to herself) from the Malcolm that was in the photograph, and that distance yawned before her in a chasm as indefatigable as the gap between yearning and complete happiness. There was always going to be one little break barring the way from pure bliss.

_He's worked here for years, hasn't he? _she thought, smiling at the picture, all the while feeling the weight of his eyes roving across her face. The very notion of Malcolm spending so much of his adult life in a job he was either too protective or ashamed of to mention freely cut into Clara like a shard of glass, but the ache was quickly replaced by a long delayed realisation. Almost comically delayed, in retrospect.

Clara steadied the ID badge between two fingers, biting down her lip as she read the title again. "Director of Communications," she said, breaking off into a quiet laugh. "Sort of funny, isn't it? Considering this entire morning has been nothing but a series of events based entirely around a _lack_ of communicating."

Malcolm's gaze was locked onto Clara's face, patient and attentive.

Clara took a breath – and that's when it hit her. Finally. "Oh my god, Malcolm," she squeaked. "You work for the _government_."

"... Yes, I know that," he said, his tone incredulous. His forehead folded up as his eyebrows pinned themselves into a single bent arch. "Did you just now piece that together?"

"No, I didn't," she said, shaking her head. Clara let go of his ID and put her hand on Malcolm's knee for balance. "Okay so I might have been keeping it at bay for a few... minutes – almost an hour, whatever, semantics. But at least now I know why you didn't want to see me here."

"Do you?"

Clara nodded, not quite understanding why Malcolm's expression had suddenly become concerned. His gaze searched back and forth between hers, the way a desperate man clings to the frayed ends of a rope before a drop down into darkness. "You've got two lives going here, haven't you? There's the job Malcolm," Clara said, nodding towards the ID and the papers still sprawled around them. "And then there's the Malcolm that I know... The one who was so surprisingly chivalrous over a broken bottle of milk. You've got the one life, and I'm... I'm –"

Further down the hall someone began to yell. Malcolm had completely abandoned any interest in the papers on the floor but he was still crouched, still tense, and still looking at Clara as if she were within seconds of cracking up. That's when she noticed she was laughing.

When Clara found her voice again, it was a timid squeak. "_I'm _in Number Ten!"

Rather than tease Clara for voicing this insultingly obvious remark, Malcolm held his tongue and let the silence in the room carry on. Clara was the one to break it a few seconds later, dissolving back into hysterical laughter that clashed with the oddly strangled look on Malcolm's face.

What had started out as a little chuckle quickly grew into an almost fit. Clara pulled her hands off of Malcolm and flattened them against her mouth, trying to trap in the sound. It didn't work. "Oh... Oh _no,_" she forced out between laughs. "Oh _no_, why am I here? Why did I think this was a good idea?" Clara shook her head and began to chew on her bottom lip. "I've got to get out of here. I've got to leave."

"You'll want to compose yourself first," Malcolm said. The strangled looked hadn't quite gone away but he also seemed to be fighting a smile, as if her delayed reaction were starting to amuse him too.

_And none of this occurred to you when you were on the phone with Sam?_

_No, _Clara answered herself. _No it absolutely did not. _Clara wasn't sure how it didn't click back when Sam was first giving the directions, nor did she have an answer as to why there was some wall between full understanding and the information she had been given. It wasn't that Clara was oblivious, just a bit more focused on the overall goal than on the actual process of achieving it.

Perhaps this was nothing more than another example of her capacity to deny an obvious truth. Like how her father's miserable remarriage had taught Clara to create excuses for the insidious ways neglect could emerge or how their emotional support, as steady as a trap door ever in danger of giving way, was still good enough just because it was some support at all. It was something. And something was better than fuck all – right?

_No, _Clara answered herself again. _No, not always. Not like this._

It was Malcolm who was starting to change her mind about this, Malcolm and all the strangely simple, yet absolutely endearing ways he could show how he cared to know her mind and all the tangled snarls of fear and hopes and idle, passing thoughts that drifted across the horizon. There was no value in settling for scraps of affection dropped Clara's way, especially when she was all but demanded to appreciate it. People were worth so much more than scraps – _people _were so much more than that. Clara's relationship with Malcolm, and whatever it would turn into from here on out after this day, was starting to make her come around to seeing that.

Which is what made her ignorance about his work so bizarre in the first place. Clara had her suspicions from the start. The long hours, the rather handsome suits, the calls at all hours of the night – none of this had passed by unnoticed, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it meant. When she and Malcolm spoke it was never on the subject of politics or anything that even came close to current events, which wasn't to say that Clara wasn't aware that the world was a troubled, brutal place. She did know it, and she would have known it even if her father hadn't taken up political conspiracy theories with the same gusto he had once helped arrange her toys in a mock doll Parliament all those years ago. Clara just couldn't justify subjecting herself to the world's anxieties any more than she could stop them from happening. And now it seemed as if that blindness had expanded to create a sort filtered hearing, the kind that could stop her brain from fully accepting the fact that her disgruntled older boyfriend worked for the government.

"You know, out of all the guesses I could have made about your job, this was the absolute _least _likely," Clara said, pulling herself out of the mire of her thoughts with a jarring effort.

Malcolm took this in. "Well I would say that I'm happy to go against your expectation, only it looks as if you're about to dissolve into another mad fucking round of hysterics. So where's the fun in that victory?" he said. His expression softened as he looked Clara over. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I am, quite possibly, the _least _okay that I have ever been in my entire life," she said, hiding her nervous grin behind her hand. After a few more seconds of this embarrassing display – well, at least it was embarrassing to _her_, Malcolm simply looked like he was in a tremendous amount of pain and forcing every agony back down – Malcolm pushed himself up to his feet and reached down for her hands.

"Up you get, come on," he grunted, pulling Clara up to her feet with his customary tender, warm strength. Malcolm leaned down to put his face close to hers, his concern becoming flat out worry now. "Right, okay," he said, nodding to himself. "Into the cupboard. Less chance of being overheard in there."

Clara watched, half-focused, still giggling madly as Malcolm led her over to the only other door in the room. It opened into a small sort of compact kitchen, complete with cabinets, Formica counters, a fridge, and a miniature table with generic matching chairs. Clara hurried over to one and sat down fast, pressing her hands between her knees and keeping her eyes on the floor. Any second now she felt like she was going to keel over and stare at dust patterns on the blindingly white, gleaming tiles.

The door to the tiny side room, the cupboard as Malcolm had called it, shut with a tight snap. Malcolm's shoes came into view as he approached Clara, and soon he pulled a chair out to sit across from her. Still he wouldn't relax. Clara could sense the tension in the air around him, filling him with just enough breath to make it for the next gasp. _Is this what it's like for him every day, _she wondered, _or is this just my own anxiety talking now? _It was getting harder to tell.

When Malcolm held her hands again, Clara noticed he was no longer shaking. This pulled her back to her senses. If he could settle down, so could she. _I have to. _Looking into those eyes she already loved, Clara asked, "Are we going to talk now?"

"Yes," he said at once. But then neither of them said anything.

Clara stared at her hands, her fingers interlacing with his. "So... This is your job," she said.

"It is, yes."

"A job you didn't feel like telling me about."

Malcolm scowled from his eyebrows down to his sickle-bent mouth. "You're still on about that?" he asked.

"I'm almost over it," she said. "Coming around a bit now."

Malcolm seemed to brace himself after this response. "Are you really?" he wondered.

Clara nodded. "It's not exactly an easy conversation starter, is it? People look at you funny once they know how you make a living, no matter who you are. Either they think your job's not good enough, it doesn't pay well, or it isn't... I don't know, _acceptable._"

Clara thought of her father and Linda, and something must have shown on her face because next she knew Malcolm was squeezing her hands tight. Clara gave herself a little shake and started again. "Or worse, what if your job is something _important_? Something full of prestige and guaranteed to get attention? Then people start looking at you like you're prime meat. Something to pick at and tear off the best parts for themselves, depending on how useful you are."

Malcolm snorted. "It does tend to make short work of even shorter discussions," he admitted.

"Does that bother you?"

"Not anymore, no," he said. He stared off, his eyes becoming glazed. "No, it used to. Once. For a little while."

All these answers came in short bursts building up to a longer truth. "Once?" she asked, hesitating.

"A very long time ago, with – someone else," Malcolm said. "I was hoping to avoid dredging up that septic tank of personal information this time around."

"For how long?"

"For as long as I could manage," he admitted.

Clara frowned. _Well at least he's being honest. No one said I had to like it, though. _"Did you expect me to just stop caring about it the more you left me in the dark?" she demanded. "Or were you _hoping_ that I'd let the matter drop so you could avoid telling me?"

Malcolm's scowl reappeared as his eyes met her wounded glare. "That's quite the leap in logic," he said.

"It's not a leap," she argued, not taking offence to his remark. "It's nothing like a leap at all, Malcolm. It's a simple step process."

"So walk us through it," he said.

"Alright. Each time our conversations have strayed even a little bit along the edge of what either one of us does for a living, you give me the barest information possible and deflect all questions back onto me. It's happened every single time," she said, leaning in close as she gathered steam. "And I haven't said anything about it until now because... Well, because you were clearly hiding something and I wasn't going to be the one to force you out of that. That had to be done on your own. But you wouldn't do it, so I... I had to try something else."

"Did you?"

"Yes, I did," Clara shot back at once. "Don't try to create an argument over nothing or I'll be out the door in a second." And yet she didn't move from the chair at all, didn't even loosen her hold on his hands. It was an empty threat and they both knew it, but Clara didn't have the time to regret her failure.

They both sat in silence, looking at each other with keen, direct stares.

"So that's... those are the steps," Clara said. "Bit of a weak summary, but there you are. And you're more than welcome to try to prove me wrong if you'd like. I'm more than happy to hear it."

Malcolm kept one hand on hers and pulled the other one back, scratching at his hair again. Clara could hear the prickling scrape of nails against skin, and she wondered if he did it as some kind of nervous habit, a way to distract him from the frustration he was undoubtedly feeling. _Just like me and my nail biting and finger chewing, _she thought. _Just one more thing that makes him human._

"I did _hope_ to tell you about it," he said. "But since it would have so terribly spoiled our otherwise riveting discussions – that's not sarcasm, by the way, I really do enjoy them –"

"Thank you," Clara said, her voice quiet. "I do too."

Malcolm smiled, but it didn't last long. "... I saw no reason to try to force the topic in," he finished.

"Not even when I asked about it directly?"

"Well by then you'd caught us off our guard. Couldn't think straight after that."

That was fair, but it wasn't enough. "Now aren't you glad I found a way?" Clara asked.

Malcolm didn't laugh. He looked, quite honestly, like he wanted to rip every single one of his teeth out and grind them to powder in his fists. "Yes, I suppose I'll be glad for it eventually," he said.

Clara let that grim statement hang between them, choosing not to address it. Not yet. Using her free hand to pat the back of the one Malcolm was still holding on to, she drew up straighter in her chair and changed track. "So – Director of Communications, eh? Fancy title. Sounds important," Clara said, nodding.

Malcolm watched her with a quizzical frown.

"Now what the hell does that title even mean?" she asked. "You know, I was worried about you being _a _politician but that sounds like you're one of the top brass, doesn't it? Almost like you're _the _politician or something."

That got him to laugh. "_The _politician?" Malcolm repeated. "Is there some sort of grading scale out there to determine just _how much _politicking a person does?"

"Well you'd know more about it than I would," Clara said. She tried to laugh as well, but it still sounded just a bit too forced.

"The answer's all there in the title," Malcolm said after a little pause. "If a certain set of responsibilities falls under the ever-expanding definition of what it means to communicate – or fail to, really, it's more that than anything else most days – then it's my job to catch it, sort out the kernels from the shit, and try to make the shit more palatable."

"How lovely," Clara said, wrinkling her nose. Again, at least he was being honest. "And what would your _official_ duties be, without all the excrement imagery?"

Malcolm scratched at his temple and a vein that was twitching there. He shrugged and began to rattle off his response. "Policy announcements, arrange a few media appearances, draft official responses, write speeches – "

"Hang on," she interrupted, holding up her hand as if to force Malcolm's words back to him. "You write _speeches_? For who, the Prime Minister?"

"Not always," Malcolm admitted, and he looked as if this was a sour point for him, a real sore thorn that needled his pride. "He'll try to sneak in an improvised line or two, you know, sly-like. As if I didn't write it all up myself and know every line back to fucking front." He snapped his teeth together for a second, took a breath, and then started again. "But there are a few other departments floundering around at the bottom who demand my attention when they wander off into a minefield and need a way back to the trenches."

His tone, coupled with his grim expression, made the knot in Clara's stomach work itself into another painful tangle. "That sounds a little... terrifying," she said.

Malcolm let go of her hand at last, and leaned against the back of his chair with a hard thump. He passed his fingers over his face as if trying to pry himself free of the tension that had settled into his expression, but all he accomplished in the end was to push it in further.

Stone-faced and guarded, Malcolm looked at Clara with a keen, curious focus. At that moment she became suddenly much more interested in her hands.

"Let's change gears a bit," she said, shifting in her seat. "Have you ever been on TV yourself?" she asked.

"No," Malcolm said at once. It was almost a shout. "No, that's not – that'd be a bit above and beyond the call of duty, yeah? Even for us, slave to the fucking wage as we are," he said, laughing. But it was a nervous laugh, an awkward sort of chuckle that made him jolt in his chair and it soon tapered off into a deep, wet cough. His voice, when he spoke again, sounded as raw as a wound that hadn't quite closed over into a scab. "I know my role. I know it well and I stay within that role. I put the talent out there, feed them a line or two, and maybe threaten to break only one bone as an incentive for good behaviour."

"Is it always that bad?" Clara asked, noticing the change in his voice. "I mean, there must be something nice to get out of it."

"It's a job," Malcolm said at once, but this felt too much like a deflection. "You get what you can, and it takes whatever it fucking wants back out of you. That's how it works."

Silence fell again.

"And what about when things go well?" she asked, taking both herself and Malcolm by surprise. "What happens when things are, er... Less awful than they always are?" Clara shrugged, opening her hands up and out until they fell down to the sides of her lap. "Do you have some sort of reward system in place?"

Malcolm didn't have to consider this for long. "That's when I pop around to see you," he said. "That usually helps. That's the reward, yeah? Seeing you."

From any other man those words would have sounded far too insincere to leave even the smallest mark on Clara's heart. It would have been an obviously heavy-handed effort to charm her, to smooth things over and dismiss any hurt that might still be lingering in the air between them. But coming from Malcolm, a man who didn't often divulge much in the form of devout confessions, and whose sincerest compliment to date had been high praise about her impressive repugnance to bullshit of all kinds, it was near kin to a sonnet.

Clara shifted once more in her seat, feeling a nervous blush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. "Well at least you're finding _something_ to keep you happy," she said, scratching her cheek hard enough to scrape it. "Dunno why you'd think to pick _monogamy _of all possible things as a reward. I mean, don't you always hear about these over the top scandals these kinds of people do to take the edge off?"

"What kinds of people?"

"You know – other people in politics," she said. "They get into all sorts of habits of excess and binges that get repackaged as some form of stress-relief. Orgies and benders and – I dunno, arrest warrants." Clara shrugged again. "But spending time with your _girlfriend? _Isn't that just a bit dull? Boring – plain?"

"Are you taking offence at how I choose to enjoy our relationship?" Malcolm asked, but Clara saw the gleam in his eye and she could hear the chuckle just behind his voice.

"Not as long as you keep using words like _our_ and _relationship,_" she said.

"Because I did get an invite just this morning for an – "

"Stop," Clara said, popping at the end of the word. Her lips slid into a smile. "I don't need to know how that joke ends."

"You can come along if you'd like," he continued, cutting in before Clara had a chance to prepare.

Clara shook her head. "I think shagging _one _person that's deep in the heart of government is more than enough excitement for one life-time, thank you," she said. "You're a suspiciously pleasant person despite your evasiveness, Malcolm, but I don't know if I could stand getting to know anyone else in your line of work. Don't know if I'd ever want to – even on a non-penetrating level."

"Thank you for saying that," Malcolm shot back, grinning. "Takes a great load off my mind, that does."

And just like that, the tense atmosphere that had been winding up all of Clara's nerves and turning her into a frayed, fumbling knot broke completely apart. Clara took a breath, the first in what felt like ages, and relaxed where she sat, feeling a natural smile take the place of all the ones she had been forcing up until that moment. When she laughed, leading Malcolm into a silent fit of his own, it was a true and proper laugh at last. It'd taken Clara a while to get there, with more than a few false starts and slip ups, not to mention a chair that refused to play along with her attempt at villainous spinning, but she had managed it in the end. Still, the fact remained that one problem continued to linger on, refusing to fade. It took the smile from Clara's face with a commendably brutal haste, making her teeth gnash hard as you bit down.

"I want to go home," she said, her laughter tapering off into a nervous mumble. "It was silly to come here, really, it was. And not the good kind of silly either, the kind of silly that can kill a woman stone dead with terminal embarrassment."

Malcolm's mouth twitched. "It's not _that _terrible," he said. "And I know you'll next say that it _feels _that terrible, but at the very least try to think it's not that bad, right?"

"This is one of the most important buildings in all of Britain," Clara reminded him, as if he needed reminding. It was certainly in the forefront of her own thoughts now. "Working here and having any kind of responsibility under this roof is more than just some sort of bragging right – it's a point of pride with _global consequences. _Like a political butterfly effect. And if I may be just the tiniest bit selfish, this is certainly no place for someone like me."

"How are you even fucking involved in this?" Malcolm asked, genuinely puzzled. "I don't say that as an insult, right? I say that out of a complete lack of any fucking understanding as to why you'd want a place here at all." He sat up, his expression lifting entirely into one incredulous, wide-eyed stare. "Or are you not going on about that? Getting several mixed signals over here."

Clara rolled her eyes. "Let's try that again. I don't belong here and I don't want to belong here," she clarified plainly, holding up one hand and staring at the angle it made in the air, noticing the way her fingers trembled less from nerves and more from a natural unsteadiness. Clara had inherited it from her mother's side, along with a certain easily rattled temper. "I came down here this morning without even thinking of the possible fallout. I got the directions and made my little plan and just... just _showed up_, as if it were the easiest thing. And it was easy! How's that for security, eh?" She pushed her hair out of her face and laughed. "I was just too focused on the joke and now it's all blowing up in my face."

Malcolm nodded slowly, considering this. "You pranked too close to the sun, Icarus," he said, all solemnity and sympathy. Clara couldn't help but laugh again.

"Yes, exactly," she chuckled, impressed by his reference. She was usually the one to call up myths or literary figures in conversations while Malcolm fell back on film or music references. _Maybe he's learning something from me, _she thought. _And hey, looks I'm learning from him now, too._

"I still don't think what you did was all that fucking terrible," Malcolm said as he shrugged again. He reached forward to stroke Clara's leg and soon found his hand trapped under hers. "And besides, everyone's always nervous their first time," he said, grinning at the stone-faced glare she threw his way.

"Oh shut up," she said, but she was smiling.

Malcolm's thumb continued to stroke the outside of her leg in slow half-circles. He tapped his own leg in a sort of restless rhythm, but when Clara looked into his eyes she saw nothing but an enviable composure, similar to how Sam had carried herself when she led Clara to Malcolm's office. Clara wondered if this, too, were some kind of trait inherited from working in the building, or if it was some kind of necessary characteristic for wanting to be here in the first place.

"Sorry to have thrown off most of your morning," she said. But the words were barely out before Malcolm was shaking his head.

"No, no, a good jolt is nice every now and then," he argued gently. "Helps keep a man on his toes."

"Thought you got more than enough of that from here," she said.

"Yes, but I don't mind if it's from you," Malcolm said.

Without another word they both got to their feet, knowing the conversation had come to a close even if the matter, awkward and strained and stressful though it was, hadn't quite been put to rest. Reaching out to rest his hands on Clara's shoulders, Malcolm leaned down to kiss her forehead, his lips lingering in a gentle press until he was sure that all the tension evaporated from her body. He searched Clara's eyes once again as he stepped back, and she saw a flash of unease behind his gaze. It faded quickly at her next words.

"Will you come over again tonight?" she asked, reaching up to run her fingers down the front of his suit, adjusting his tie. "If you can spare a few hours, that is. It's alright if not, I mean – now that I know you're basically the main filter for every major political news story in the country, I'll understand if you can't spare more than a quick phone call."

Malcolm ignored this last part with a deliberate effort that made his jaw tighten and his gaze turn hard. "'Course I can," he said at once. "I can do that with no question." His relief was as raw and bared in his eyes as it was in his voice, but Clara didn't quite understand where it was coming from. What could _he _have to be nervous about?

Malcolm's hands were still on her shoulders, his hold tightening in a slow, eager pressure. Clara watched as his face broke through the composed mask and soon became a look of an almost compulsive need, an honesty as terrible as it were true. "You're important to me, yeah? Remember?" he said as he looked between her eyes, his gaze falling down through layers of thoughts until the stare became no less intimate than having his body against hers, skin on skin, sweat blending with sweat. "You're my reward for a reason."

It was getting harder to think straight with Malcolm looking at her like that, as if every secret and long buried part of him ached to fill up that tiny gap between where she stood and hold himself flush against her body. Clara tightened her hold on the front of his suit, cleared her throat, and kept herself on her feet out of a sheer effort of will.

"Well I'll... I'll try to live up to that standard," she said, somewhat breathless. "By doing absolutely nothing different from before, of course."

Malcolm patted her shoulders again, offering up a rare, small smile. "That's my girl," he said. "Thanks for dropping by. It was a real treat."

Clara laughed and stepped out from under his hands, turning back to the door of the cupboard that led back into his office. "Thanks for finally having me here," she said.

Malcolm followed Clara into his office and across the room towards the door. His hand found her wrist and he pulled her back with a quick, strong tug. His lips were on hers at once, startling her with the hunger of his kiss. But before she could settle too comfortably into it, the kiss ended.

Reaching past Clara to open the office door, Malcolm's face became the near twin to stone again. He nodded at her, his muscles tensing from his temples down through his neck. "Anytime," he said. And she knew in the surest depths of her heart that he meant it.

* * *

><p>Malcolm arrived at Clara's flat later that evening with dinner (pizza and beer, as per her request), and an effortlessly warm grin to match every kiss he gave (to her absolute delight, even though he <em>was <em>even sicker than when she'd last seen him). Every touch of his lips on hers sent Clara's head spinning, both from the tenderness of every kiss and from the glasses of wine she'd had about a half hour before Malcolm arrived.

Clara didn't have the heart to admit that she had pre-empted the beer with two large glasses of her best white zinfandel, but there was a little rational voice that chimed in from the back of her mind to remind her that she probably wasn't all that composed anyway. _If he didn't know you were just a bit tipsy when you fell against him at the door, then he _has _to know now that you're half-lying in his lap._

_Probably, _she admitted right back. But that was a risk Clara was more than happy to take, especially considering how nice it felt to be with Malcolm after that absolutely horrible mess of a day.

Luckily it was clear he felt the same way. With one arm wrapped around Clara's shoulders to hold her against his side, Malcolm had begun stroking her hair from almost the minute she leaned into him, gliding his warm fingers out to the ends and brushing them back from her face and neck. He seemed in no hurry to move from this spot at all – if anything he had relaxed into it, fitting himself around her as best as the position could allow.

With the wine buzzing in her head and the beer starting to take hold of her courage, Clara pushed against Malcolm until she had enough distance to get a good look at his face. Something had been lurking in the edges of her mind ever since she got back from Number Ten earlier that day, something he'd said just before she left. Clara replayed the words once more in her mind, letting them blot out every other thought.

"_Remember? You're my reward for a reason."_

Gazing intently at Malcolm, her entire face working hard to keep herself focused and in place, Clara gave him a sharp poke in the side, just against the soft warmth of his stomach. "Hey, psst."

"Yes?" he asked, a bit distracted by the movie she had put on earlier. It was an old favourite of hers, something harmless and sure to kill a good two hours with well-timed laughter and cheer. _Arsenic and Old Lace _always had a way of cheering Clara up even when all the world seemed to be pushing hard against her back, trying to work her bones to dust.

Clara reached out for Malcolm, hoping to pat his shoulder or maybe just rest her hand against his face, but somehow she ended up squishing her fingers against his cheeks until he looked like a grumpy puffer fish in her hands. Clara stared Malcolm dead in the eye, laughter bubbling up in her chest at the sight of him so lovingly distorted. "You are terribly important to me," she said, forcing each word to sound as gravely dire as they felt inside her head. "Remember that, okay? Next time you have to go in to work on a bad day and you would rather chew glass or stick yourself balls deep in a trash compactor, you remember me like this, right here and now. You remember me sitting here giving your nice old face a squeeze."

Malcolm blinked at her and kept silent by personal choice. He could have talked if he wanted to, but it was clear he wanted to hear what Clara had to say before chiming in with his own thoughts.

Clara continued to speak, finding it hard to stop now that she was giving a voice to the secret life inside her heart. "_You_, Malcolm Tucker, are important to me – you mean so much, and give me even more than that. It's almost... No, it actually _is_ scary. It keeps me up at night sometimes, you know? But that's fine. I don't mind being anxious like that." Clara nodded slowly, making Malcolm's head bob along too. "It's the good kind of anxious. The kind that can turn into love when you're not looking."

Malcolm's eyes narrowed at this. He lifted his arm very slowly and wrapped one hand around her wrist, prying her fingers off his face. "Say that again," he breathed, his voice unexpectedly warm as the words fanned out across her face.

"I can do even better than that," Clara said. "I can rephrase it."

"Go on, then. Say it."

Clara cleared her throat and leaned forward until the very tip of her nose brushed against his. "I'm in love with you," she said. "I don't lay in bed at night holding back sleep for anyone else, Malcolm. Never did it before and I'll never do it for anyone after – because I don't want anyone after. I want you. I love you... _and_ your nice old face."

The wine may have made Clara brave, but it was only because her heart needed all the courage she could get to speak freely like this. It'd been the first time she ever told Malcolm she loved him like this, flat out and in direct, open words. Clara grinned at him, watching as his mouth fell open and his eyes roamed over every sincere inch of her face, perhaps looking for a fault line like he had that morning. Once again, like this morning, he found none.

Moving with a speed that made Clara gasp, Malcolm wrapped her up in his arms, pulled her close to his chest, and gave her the kind of kiss that can knock teeth and crack bones and steal every last gasping breath from a set of burning lungs. Her head spun again, madly, adoringly, as her lips bruised under his. Each gasp she took between the kiss was ultimately useless since they were intent on leaving the other gasping again in a matter of seconds.

Clara found her breath long enough to realise that Malcolm had lifted her off the couch and into his arms in a bridal carry, leading her back towards her bedroom. Slowly the fog cleared from her head and the sensible thoughts began to return again. _The TV's still on, so at least that'll help drown out what's going to happen once we shut the door behind us._

And then Malcolm moved his lips to her ear and said, "I love you" with a growl that was all devotion, an heartfelt and tender fury, and away went her breath again. Clara could barely catch hold of it again for the rest of the night. Malcolm made sure of that – so she gave back as good as she got and kept him gasping until he collapsed against her chest, whispering her name and high praises until exhaustion forced him to sleep.

* * *

><p>Clara woke up the next morning well-rested, happily sore, and with a bite mark or two dotting her hips and neck. Malcolm, however, was barely moving. Breathing, yes, but the end of his nose had gone noticeably redder, his skin clammier and much more pale. When he finally woke up each of his breaths were punctured by deep, wet coughs that rattled in his chest, making him lean forward and fold up against his legs.<p>

"Malcolm - _Malcolm_!" Clara took his shoulder in hand and gave it a harsh shove, pushing him from his side onto his back.

"Stop fucking _shouting_," he grumbled. "Did enough of that last night, yeah?"

Clara nodded once, relieved. "Well at least you can hear me," she said. "I didn't know you were _this _sick. I mean I guessed, it was as obvious as the nose on your face, but this is just unacceptable."

Ignoring Malcolm's mutterings about how she was in no place to call anyone sick or unacceptable considering some of the things she said and did last night, Clara crawled out of her bed and picked at the clothes strewn around her floor. Pulling on a shirt and stepping into her knickers, Clara crossed over to where she'd left her mobile on the nearby dresser. Lifting it up, she turned to Malcolm and held a finger to her lips, demanding his silence.

"Please hold all further bollocking until I'm off the phone," she said, pressing it to her ear and waiting for the call to patch through. It answered on the eleventh ring.

"Clara! To what do I owe this enormously unexpected pleasure?"

Clara kept her eyes on Malcolm's face, watching the way his eyes narrowed at the faint tinny sound of another man's voice. She smiled at him, strangely enjoying the look of suspicion in his gaze and the fact that she and she alone could take it away. He really didn't have anything to worry about. It had become a standing agreement ever since their disastrous split last Christmas that Clara and John would at least _try _to remain friends.

"Hello, Doctor," she said, reaching out to stroke Malcolm's hair. The scalp beneath was warm under her fingertips, and it was obvious he was running an awful fever. "You're not busy, are you? Because I've got just a little favour to ask."


	13. The Whispers in the Dark

**Notes: **The not so stunning conclusion to _The Secret Life Inside, _featuring AU!Eleventh Doctor (as a doctor no less), sickly grumpy Malcolm, begrudging nurse Clara, and a few surprise guests in between. Also includes night-time cuddles, relationship introspection, and a bit of backstory to this version of Clara's romantic history. Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>The Whispers in the Dark<br>**

The drive over to Doctor Smith's office took less time and a lot less energy than Clara expected, all things considered. Even the preparation for the trip was an almost entirely painless event, interrupted only by Malcolm's complaints and Clara's protracted silences as she looked her grumpy, obviously ill boyfriend from top to toe. The other impediment, invisible to them both, were Clara's dark, anxious thoughts about the past and those left behind in its shadow. It was only after she'd forced Malcolm to get dressed in the change of clothes he'd left over at her flat from a previous night did Clara finally break her silence.

After laughing at Malcolm's congested rant about her "dressing him up like a fleece fucking civilian," to cart him off god knows where, Clara held up a finger to silence him. Malcolm's mouth shut at once.

"Listen, Malcolm. You're sick. I _know _you're sick, I can hear it in your voice and quite frankly, you really don't look so hot," she said. Ignoring his absolutely affronted stare, complete with bared teeth and a little unconscious sniffle, Clara cleared her throat, gave his arm a pat, and continued. "Didn't mean it like that, but you can take it whatever way you'd like. As long as it gets you moving."

"And to _where_, I'd like to fucking know?" Malcolm had demanded. He looked about as rumpled and discontent as a man forced out of the warm comforts of his girlfriend's bed could be expected to look. If you added in whatever was making him sick into the equation, Clara knew that Malcolm looked less like a grumpy puffer fish and more like a bedraggled, storm-weary owl.

_Moulting and miserable, _she thought, hiding her laugh by turning her head. _That's my boyfriend, all right._

"It's not very far, only a few blocks over," Clara said. "There's a friend a mine, a doctor, he's got an office just a couple minutes away. He said he can take a look at you real quick as long as we get there before the hour's up."

"D'you make it a habit of collecting friends that owe you medical favours?" Malcolm grumbled.

"Heard that, did you?" she asked. But before Malcolm could answer, Clara gave a practised shrug and turned to her closet to get dressed. "He doesn't owe me a _medical_ favour, not exactly_. _He just... owes me, that's all. Simple."

"Why?"

"I've sworn to keep a terrible dark secret of his until I'm mouldering in my grave with the worms," Clara said, her expression as rigid as her tone.

Malcolm was the first one to break the poker face charade. "Right, not my business. Bit personal, I expect." He pushed his hands into his pockets and studied Clara. "What's his name? I can ask that, yeah?"

"John. John Smith."

Malcolm snorted.

"Whatever joke you're thinking of making about his name, don't bother. You're too late," she said, yanking a dress off a wire hanger and holding it against herself to test the look. "I've heard them, he's heard them – they're old."

"John Smith – have you mentioned him before?" Malcolm wondered, watching Clara get dressed in an unusually subdued appreciation. "Sounds familiar. Which should be fucking impossible, considering how unremarkable that name is. Does he get lost in a crowd of one? Did all school photos include a caption underneath saying _Not Pictured, _despite him clearly being pictured?"

"I don't think I've told you about him, no," Clara said, ignoring the other questions. "Maybe just once or twice in passing, something like that. Not that I expected you to remember him, busy man that you are." Clara turned away from her closet and pulled the end of her dress down over her hips. She made sure to keep her eyes away from Malcolm's face as she half tugged, half shoved him out of her room and into the hall.

Clara was surprised and quite pleased to see that her hands weren't shaking, nor had her voice faltered when she mentioned John. It showed a confidence she didn't entirely feel, especially since she was soon going to be throwing the _old _boyfriend into a room with the other old boyfriend. _The proper, literal older one, _she thought._ Because that's not at all a bad idea for early in the morning._

For one awful second Clara was reminded of how she'd gone about drawing up her plan to drop by Number Ten. She'd thought that through more thoroughly than this adventure, to be sure. A whole twenty minutes' more time had been devoted to the first, whereas taking Malcolm to see John had been the product of ten seconds of thought: Malcolm's sick, he needs a doctor, and Clara knew one.

However, there was one point that stood out to Clara as a saving grace this time around, a somewhat mercenary and cold fact that brought a strange, steel-chilling comfort each time she thought about it. John owed Clara a favour. He owed her for many things of course, some of them financially based and others which no one in this world had the power to ever repay, but this one thing, this one little boon was something he could easily give. John owed her a chance to be in control of an encounter as awkward as the one that had brought an abrupt, brutal halt to their relationship, and Clara wasn't going to pass this opportunity up for anything. That Malcolm would also obviously benefit from the encounter was, of course, something to celebrate.

_If all works out to be tense and more than a little sweary then I can consider it a tremendous success, _Clara decided in the quiet comfort of her own thoughts. _Malcolm will have his fever looked at, I'll have a chance to show off a bit in front of John, and John gets to see that I've moved on. Perfect._

_Maybe. A little. Oh god, I _hope.

Stopping by her kitchen long enough to retrieve her coat from where she'd thrown it across the little table, Clara patted the pockets to check for her keys. Nodding in relief at the little clinking metal sound, she then turned to the doorway, moving her back away from the pale grey sunlight of morning. Malcolm was watching her with bleary eyes, not so much suspicious as he was curious.

"What?" she asked, pulling her hair out from under the collar of the coat and brushing it over her shoulders.

"I thought you said he was a nurse," Malcolm said after a pause, his tone growing more thoughtful as he sifted through the sluggish haze of his mind. "A nurse who moved off to New York, yeah? What's his name, Rowan?"

"No, you're thinking of Rory," Clara corrected, surprised that Malcolm's thoughts would have turned to him of all people. "He's the one that married Amy, remember?"

Malcolm only stared at Clara, neither blinking nor shaking his head.

Clara scowled. "The tall woman with an impressive temper - impressive even compared to _yours,_" she said. No flash of recognition seemed to register on Malcolm's face so she tried again. "Worked as a model for a bit. Red hair. _Scottish_. I showed you pictures from the wedding, they're up on the wall in the hall," she said, gesturing towards that end of her flat.

That seemed to make something click. "Right, of course. Those two," Malcolm said, nodding as the thoughts came together. "The mouse and the model. Still haven't met them, you know. Sort of hard to keep track of a fucking name without a face to apply along with it."

"I just said I showed you the pictures," Clara pointed out.

"Pictures are a bit different from an actual in the flesh appearance, sweetheart."

"Now you're just trying to be difficult," she muttered, but she couldn't quite ignore the brief look of impish glee that moved across Malcolm's face. That flash of a smirk brought him momentarily out of his fever's delirium and showed himself off as a man intent to make his girlfriend laugh.

Clara didn't know why she enjoyed this back and forth banter as much as she did. Probably because it gave her a chance to test out the muscle of her own argumentative skills without actually requiring the heat and fury of a genuine confrontation. No other relationship had done quite the same thing for her before, either platonic or romantic. Her family, her friends, and whatever other boyfriend or girlfriend that had come along throughout the years had never presented Clara with quite the same sanctuary of healthy moments of contention that Malcolm gave to her.

_John just wasn't the type, and Amy and Rory were... Amy and Rory. _For a brief second Clara's mind allowed her attention to drift away from the problems that glared at her full in the face. She set aside Malcolm's sickness and the impending encounter with her ex, and let her thoughts settle on the less troubled but still dicey area of her oldest and dearest friends.

For most of Clara's teenage years, as hectic and agonising as that period of her life was thanks to the nearly stereotypical fairytale mistreatment of her step-mother, there hadn't been anyone else Clara could consider her best mates than Amy Pond and Rory Williams. After being introduced into Clara's life through a series of school projects and pranks for which all three of them were punished (poor Rory being the only innocent one among them), they'd grown closer to Clara's heart than her own blood. It had even felt different from all the other friendships Clara had made and subsequently lost over the years. She was always losing things, but not these two. Amy and Rory endured, they survived.

Looking back, Clara knew without a doubt that they had helped make the whole arduous process of growing up into a semi responsible adult that much more bearable. Some days Clara thought she'd only gotten through to her twenties with the help of Amy and Rory acting as alternating pillars of support and confidence, pushing her when she needed to be pushed, holding her steady when she felt ready to crumble. _I owe them more than I can ever pay back. They gave me so much – and so did John for a while. _Clara put forth a massive effort to keep her face from cracking under the strain of that particular realisation. John had a significant part of that survival process as well, filling the earlier days of Clara's university years with the sort of blind, dizzying love that most people would never see in their lives - which might not be an entirely bad thing.

Malcolm's eyes drifted down to Clara's smile before it could shift into a wistful half smirk. Her delight was undeniable when her thoughts settled on her friends, and Malcolm usually enjoyed the way her face could brighten up like a flame flaring to life, her eyes growing wide and her dimple creasing up her left cheek. He would never say it, not yet anyway, but Clara's was a contagious kind of happiness, a sickness he was happy to suffer. But just as quickly as the warmth and the smile appeared, both were quick to fade. And both of them knew exactly why.

"Are you still not talking to them?" Malcolm asked, sensing the tenor of Clara's thoughts.

Chewing hard on the inside of her cheek, Clara pushed passed Malcolm into the hall, leading him towards the front door. "They're the ones who aren't talking to me," she muttered, waiting until Malcolm joined her in the hall outside her flat. "I've sent letters, I've left messages, I've done everything but show up in New York and wait for them outside their building. And I really don't want it to come down to that. Seems a touch desperate, even for old friends."

Malcolm watched carefully as Clara shoved her keys into her pocket and straightened up, the movement as well as the breath she took drawing back the mire of her thoughts before they could cloud her mood further. He could tell something was bothering her, just as much as he could tell that there was an entire hidden field of thought she was keeping buried all to herself. What he didn't know was how to gently coax the information out of her, so severely was his mind addled and weary with sickness.

Clara offered him a quick smile and reached out to adjust the lapel of his coat, running her fingers down the front in a little pat. "Ready to go?" she asked. It was a mere formality and they both knew it. They were already leaving regardless of what Malcolm had to say about it. Her tone as well as her stern look suggested this.

Malcolm sneezed against the sleeve of his coat, swearing in between a fresh wave of coughs.

"I'll take that as my answer," Clara said, careful to loop her arm around his other sleeve.

* * *

><p>Malcolm's surly temper quickly gave way to bitterness as they arrived at John's office. A woman with wild, curly blonde hair left the waiting room just as they were walking in, and though he thanked her for holding the door to let both of them pass, Malcolm's words were quickly bitten back with a sharp snap of his jaw. He looked about as awful as Clara felt, and this knowledge made her guilt rise up from its recently buried depths, twisting her stomach into a new knot.<p>

Silently swearing to make him the damned best cup of tea she could once they got back to her flat, Clara left Malcolm to seethe in a plum-coloured plastic chair near a fake potted plant as she approached the receptionist. "Hello, my name's Clara Oswald," she sang out, resting one arm on the sill that separated her side of the room from the professional edge. "I called just a few minutes ago to speak with Dr. Smith. I think he managed to wedge my friend in for a quick appointment?"

The dark-haired, brown eyed receptionist listened to all this with a bored expression, clearly in dire need of more caffeine or a better night's rest. "You spoke with the doctor directly, then?" she asked, snapping her gum.

Clara nodded. "That I did, yes," she said, taking note of the nametag on the woman's chest. _Patty._

"Alright, I'll get him," Patty said with a little sigh. She pushed herself back from the counter with impressive quickness before disappearing further down the hall and out of Clara's sight.

Clara watched her go. Clearly she was happy to brush the responsibility of this task onto someone else, but Clara didn't have the energy to waste on begrudging her for it. _Whatever gets this day moving along so Malcolm can get back to bed and rest is fine by me. Well, almost fine. _At this thought, Clara turned to look at Malcolm. Her had folded his arms across his chest and hunched up his shoulders, all but pouting in the chair. Once again she was put in mind of an angry owl, or a rather subdued, frustrated lizard.

Once she caught his eye, Clara smiled. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like the last stain scraped off a fucking bed pan," Malcolm snapped.

"You'll feel better soon, okay? Promise," Clara said, her heart swelling with sympathy as she watched Malcolm dissolve into another fit of coughs. "John'll help, you can be sure of that. And at least you can use this as a good excuse to take a day or two off from work, yeah? Give the office life a break, just for a few hours."

Malcolm stared at Clara with open disbelief, holding one hand against his mouth as his coughs faded. "That's not how it works, Clara," he said, shaking his head.

_That is exactly how it's going to work, Malcolm. _"We don't have to talk about it now," she cut in, holding up a hand and using the other to scratch at the back of her head. "And we definitely don't have to talk about it here."

Though he looked like he wanted to say quite a bit on the subject, another attack of coughs and sneezes prevented Malcolm from saying anything more than another round of bitter snarls. He hushed up quickly enough when Clara handed him a box of tissues and gave his shoulder a warm, supportive pat before she took a seat next to him.

While her mind was on the subject, Clara couldn't deny that another benefit from dragging Malcolm off to the doctor's, apart from getting that nasty cough looked at, was for the hope that he would finally get a chance to spend this rare day off as they were intended to be spent: relaxed under blankets with naught to do but nothing itself. Malcolm's work ethic was always miraculously ramped up to eleven, keeping him up at all hours and forcing him to pare himself down past sinew and marrow to hold together an alarmingly large section of the fabric of the political world, and while Clara only recently understood _why _he had to be this way – as recently as twenty-four hours ago, to be precise – she also wasn't going to stand by while he made himself into a husk for the job.

_Or more of a husk than he already is, _she corrected, noticing the way the top notches of Malcolm's spine were starting to show more prominently as he leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. The steady supply of home-cooked meals that Malcolm had been substituting in lieu of going out to restaurants had led to both Clara and Malcolm developing a bit of surprising softness, creating what she delightfully referred to as _tummies_. Neither one of them minded this end result all too much, considering the culinary benefits outweighed any amount of shame they might have felt. However, either due to the energy he worked off or the very agonising nature of the job itself, Malcolm had already worked himself back down to the knobby-thin weight he'd been when he and Clara first met a few months back.

_I wonder what he's eating – besides coffee, shortbread, tangerines, and the spinal fluid of accident-prone ministers? _Clara wondered, stroking Malcolm's back as he suppressed a long, rattling cough that made his shoulders shake. _Does he neglect himself on purpose? Or does he not even notice? _She wanted to ask him all of these things, wanted to focus in on Malcolm's particular bit of self-aimed, self-defeating abuse, but the timing couldn't have been more inappropriate. Or rather, John's timing was.

A familiar face peeked in from the open door that separated the waiting room from the back end of the office. John peered around the room, his bright, pale eyes landing on Clara just as a smile burst across his face. "Hello, Clara," he said, pushing the door open wider. "Nice to see you again."

"Hello, Doctor," Clara said. She looked John over curiously, wanting to see how the past year of separation had changed him. His dark brown hair was brushed back from his forehead in his customary little sweep, and his idea of professional dress still included a bow tie and braces, both of which made Clara smile despite herself.

"Clara please, call me John. Don't be so formal," John mused, walking into the room and coming to a stop a few paces back from where Clara and Malcolm sat. "What's a title between old friends?"

"I think I'd rather stick with Doctor," Clara said, her hands pressing down tighter on Malcolm's arm and back as he shivered hard enough to knock his teeth together. "And look – not to rush you or anything but I'm sort of here for a reason?" she said, looking pointedly at Malcolm.

John looked at the arm Clara had wrapped around Malcolm's back as well as the hand she had resting on his shoulder, taking in this wordless expression of intimacy. "Right, of course. Sorry," John said, laughing uneasily. "You and your er, friend can come right this way."

Whatever John felt about seeing Clara tending to another man wasn't readily visible on his face, which surprised her. John, the John _she _had known, was usually such a terrifyingly open book. Often this trait was more endearing than not, but there were instances where Clara felt overwhelmed by the astonished, wide-eyed, boyish expressions that clashed up against the worst of her moods.

_He never knew how to handle a mood more serious than a scowl, _she remembered. _Makes him go into an absolute panic. _Clara wondered if John was still this hopeless when it came to the impressive range and depth of human emotions – and then realised with a little start, that she would soon find out once Malcolm was ready to talk for himself.

Nudging Malcolm to his feet, Clara gave his arm a squeeze and kept her eyes focused on John as they all walked through the door and down the narrow hall to one of the first examination rooms. She didn't notice that Malcolm had done the same, or that he was even ready to talk again until she heard his voice just as they shuffled into room.

"Right, Smith, was it? Dr. Smith?" Malcolm asked.

"That would be me, yes," John said, smiling at Malcolm and getting a full-faced scowl in return. John didn't flinch under this treatment, though he did pull back his hand before Malcolm could shake it, noticing the wadded up knot of tissues the older man was passing back and forth between his long, thin fingers. "And I think Clara mentioned on the phone that your name was Tucker, first name Malcolm?"

Only Clara nodded. Malcolm didn't seem like he wanted to move a single muscle. She gave him a little shove towards the table covered in crinkling white tissue paper, noticing that he was starting to sway on his feet.

"Let's get a few preliminary questions cleared up straight away, yeah?" Malcolm said, letting Clara guide him to the table and shoving the shredded pieces of tissue into his pocket. He clapped his hands together with a loud bark of skin and bone, holding them together with a tight, white-knuckled grasp. "I don't drink as often as I ought, nor do I smoke with any degree of tumour-birthing regularity. I spend most of my time at my job, which has ball-shatteringly high levels of stress so yes, I would say that my life is frequently stressful. I would also say that I spend most of my days existing in a state of near hysterical panic. I eat what I can when I can get it, and how I get my exercise is another personal matter entirely," he finished, throwing a quick look over to Clara. Malcolm said all this in a rush, his voice as pleasant as he could make it be with the dripping nose and wet cough building up again in his throat.

Clara stared at Malcolm, her eyebrows darting up high on her forehead. "That might just be one of the longest, swear-free statements I've ever heard you say," she said, sincerely impressed. Although she would, of course, have to cheerfully beat him to death later on for the last part of his remark.

"Wanted to keep it a bit clean for your young doctor friend here," Malcolm said, mirroring Clara's crooked smile to the best of his ability before another round of coughs took it away.

John stared with increasing levels of surprise at every word Malcolm spoke, taking occasional breaks to peer at Clara to check her reaction. Now standing frozen in the centre of the room with his shoulders slumped and his pale eyes darting back and forth, John soon began to fidget on the spot, turning around in a quick twirl until he found a little stool to drag over and sit on with a quick plop.

"So what I'm hearing is you've got one hell of a life nipping at your heels, and it all seems to have bound together and climbed up to bite you in other, er, places," John said, smiling cheerily at Malcolm, who couldn't look less happy to play along. "That would be the back story. Now what's the driving action, eh? What specifically brought you here today?" he asked, and he started to clap his hands together until he remembered Malcolm had just done that. He settled instead on tapping his hands to his knees and twiddling his fingers against the rounded bones.

As she looked back and forth between John and Malcolm, Clara was strongly reminded of a tiny puppy yipping and darting around a larger, weary mastiff. "He's been running a fever all weekend," Clara said, gesturing to Malcolm. "He's also had some pretty severe cold-like symptoms for a few days now. Coughing, runny nose, watery eyes, the works. Wouldn't have thought much of it, except for the whole fever and chills part."

"Thanks for chiming in, Mummy dear," Malcolm scoffed.

Clara hit his leg with the back of her hand in a harsh swot. "Don't ever call me that again. I'm here to help, not to be a joke, Malcolm. Got it?"

Malcolm said nothing. He turned his hand over and held it out for Clara to take. When she did, he folded his fingers over, closing almost her entire hand in his warm grasp.

Pushing himself to his feet with a sudden start, John spun on his heel and reached for a few supplies on the counter next to the metal sink. He began to tap the pockets of his coat, looking momentarily panicked. "Alright, well, I'll need to get a few standard measures done before I say for sure what I think it is," he said, though he seemed to be talking to himself. "There's the throat swabs and nasal washes I'll have to get out of the way to help get _you_ on your way again. All in all a bit harmless, eh? Except for that lung you're coughing up all over your lady friend," John finished, frowning as Malcolm was racked with another spasm.

Once the coughing cleared off, Malcolm straightened up and tried out a long breath through his teeth. He was still holding onto Clara's hand, still seeking her support and strength, but now he was giving the doctor a look that felt a bit too much like a wordless challenge for Clara's comfort.

Sensing this change in the atmosphere of the room, a small frisson of tension moved across John's forehead as he approached the examination table with a tongue depressor in one hand and an otoscope in the other. He flipped either one into the air in quick succession, making it seem as if he were going to juggle them. He came quite close to dropping both. "Right? Yes? Good, okay, let's get started," he said.

Clara stood up. "I'll wait outside," she announced, not looking at either Malcolm or John, but at the worryingly decreasing space in between the two. Her heart was starting to stutter in an unexpectedly rapid pace, and she pulled her hand back from Malcolm's before he could notice that she was starting to shake.

Without waiting to hear what either man might say to her disappearance, Clara turned and strode out of the door, heading back down the hall towards the waiting room. She stopped a few paces away from the door just before the receptionist would have noticed her. _I don't have to go _too _far, _she reasoned. Her anxious instincts were no longer screaming at her to crouch down on the floor and hide but instead urging her to walk, and keep walking until that walk became a run, and until that run took her far from where she now stood. _I don't have to go far at all. Just pace a bit, yes?_

Folding her arms over her chest and chewing on her bottom lip, Clara pretended she had been pacing up and down the hall in case Patty should bother to notice her. She didn't, and Clara was grateful.

Clara turned slowly on her heel and headed back the way she came, her thoughts growing into a boil. Up until the moment she left the room Clara would have gladly said that of the three of them, John was by far the most nervous. It was either Clara's reserved, almost icy distance or the simple imposing presence of Malcolm that set her former boyfriend on edge, but she couldn't exactly blame him for reacting that way. Nor could she feel satisfied by it either.

_That _is_ what I was hoping would happen._ _Besides trying to get professional look at one of the many problems Malcolm has, I did also want to come down here and show off the new one to the old one just a tiny bit. Go on, admit it._ Clara thought this over as she turned at the end of the hall and went back up towards the front, near the receptionist's alcove. She heard Malcolm and John's voices mingle together and leak out from the edges of the door as she passed their room, but it was the unmistakable sound of their laughter that made her stop. When it faded she moved on again, completing another lap of her hallway pace_._

_It would just be my luck for them to get on like old mates, wouldn't it? _Clara had to laugh at herself as she shook her head, running her hand through her hair to push back a few stray strands. She lout out a long sigh to help keep the laughter trapped inside her chest, chewing down hard on her lip. Clara had learned her lesson from the laughing fit at Number Ten yesterday; she wouldn't allow herself to repeat that embarrassing hysterical process in her ex-boyfriend's clinic.

Clara's face became a harsh, stern mask as she paced up and down the hall in a slow tread, her lips pressing into a tight line of disapproval that she usually saved for the worst behaving students in class. She wasn't entirely without sympathy for John and the obvious unease that must have been bothering him ever since she'd asked him to take a look at Malcolm, but she also had to be fair to herself. _J__ohn's an adult, he can handle this. He should have gained some skill at handling uncomfortable situations by now_, Clara thought. _He has to poke around at strangers' bodies for half the day. It really doesn't get much more uncomfortable than that.  
><em>

It wasn't until the door to the examination room opened and all her anxious thoughts ground to a harsh, short stop did Clara realise that she might have been dead wrong about John being the nervous one. No, that unhappy burden seemed to rest entirely on her own shoulders. It wasn't until John spoke did Clara finally realise just how expertly she'd been hiding her own rattled nerves.

"Come back in, Clara," John said. "The worst of it's over, isn't that right, Mr. Tucker?"

Malcolm forced a smile at John, hiding his teeth. He laughed a little to accompany John's chuckle, but Clara couldn't tell how sincere it was on either man's part. John could be cheerful to an almost embarrassing fault, and Malcolm had a way of turning even the widest grins into a sort of reverse grimace.

Clara's hands were still shaking in little tremors as John smiled and welcomed her back into the room. Her heart kicked off into its usual trip when she saw Malcolm's most charming slanted grin, his eyes flashing with as much energetic charm as he could muster in between sneezes. Clara stepped across the doorway and came to a stop an arm's length away from where Malcolm sat, once again reminded of the awful way her plan had fallen apart in Number Ten. Crossing the threshold back into the examination room had felt as final and isolating as stepping into Malcolm's office behind Sam.

Clasping her hands, Clara brushed her fears into a dark, well-used corner of her brain marked _Ignore For God's Sake, _and took a breath. "So, Doctor. What's the word?" she asked, looking at John.

"The word is influenza," John said, looking far too chipper to have delivered such news. He cast a bashful look over at Malcolm, who had fallen into a blank-faced, flat-mouthed glare, before turning his attention back to Clara. "It's... It's the flu, sorry. Your boyfriend should take it easy for the rest of the week. Might take some convincing on your part, Clara, so best of luck with that." John nodded at her, succinct and slow. "He seems a bit moody," he added in a stage whisper.

"Right, I thought as much," Clara said, and then his words hit her, making her do a double take. Her eyes seemed to grow three times too large for her face as she looked at John closely, her throat closing over as if a fist had cinched around it. "Wait my – my what?"

"Your boyfriend," John repeated, his smile fading around the edges until it became almost mournful. He turned to Malcolm and said, "I agree with you on this one, mate, that word doesn't really fit you at all."

"There you go, see?" Malcolm said, gesturing with an open, flat hand to John and turning to peer at Clara. He cleared his throat, fighting back another cough. "Even Dr. Infant here agrees."

"It's Smith," John corrected. "But yes, as far as what Mr. Tucker's got, we're looking at the flu. He should be perfectly fine - once it's out of his system, of course," he added quickly, shaking his head and waving his hands as if to scatter his words like smoke in a breeze. "Til then get plenty of rest, drink lots of clear fluids - I hear good things about that water stuff, might want to put down the coffee for most of the week - and try curling up under a nice thick blanket. Or twelve. Tartan should work wonders in your case, Mr. Tucker."

"Expert advice, Dr. Toddler," Malcolm said, nodding as if he had been told a rather sage collection of words. "Truly invaluable, really."

_What the hell is going on? _Clara wondered, staring between the two men. Had Malcolm told John about their relationship, or had John been the one to ask? She wasn't sure which was more astonishing: Malcolm volunteering that information himself or John daring to ask about it flat out.

"Again, the name's Smith," John said. "And you're very welcome." He plucked at his braces and turned to Clara on the heel of his shoes, snapping the toes down hard on the tiled floor. Malcolm scowled at this bit of unnecessary charm and cheer. "And now would be the time for me to ask if you've had a flu shot recently. So... I'm asking. Have you?"

Clara recovered more quickly than she expected, considering the strange turn of events and bizarrely friendly atmosphere in the room. "I'm all set, actually," she said, her voice rising a few pitches higher from the strain on her throat. Malcolm noticed this right away; Clara could feel his eyes darting all over her in a quick, quizzical gaze. It didn't help calm her down. She continued, keeping her eyes on John's curious face. "They were on us about getting shots for weeks down at Coal Hill, so I should be all right," she said.

"Oh yes, of course, that's right," John said, nodding a little as he reflected. "You're a teacher now, eh? Aunt Sarah would be glad to know that."

"And how _is _Sarah Jane?" Clara asked. "You don't actually call her Sarah to her face, do you? You know she hates it when people drop off the rest of her name."

John shrugged, tucking his fingers into his pockets. "Not for me," he said, smiling. "I suppose that's nephew privileges, though. And she's doing well, thanks. I'll tell her you said hello."

Clara forced herself to keep her eyes pinned to the expression, surprised but not the least bit miserable to find that his smile no longer had any power over her. Her heart used to crack at that sad, sweet smile. Now it barely picked up half a beat. "Or you could just tell her to call," she pointed out. "I wouldn't mind hearing from her again. We've got a lot to catch up on."

"I will absolutely let her know about you, yes," John said, his voice pitching lower. "Don't you worry about that."

Malcolm stood up, both heels dropping down onto the tiled floor with a low thud. Clara took one look at his expression - patient but also carefully guarded, the way anyone who found themselves a sudden outsider in a group of three would look - and pulled herself together with a little shake. "We should be going now," she said, smiling quickly at John. "He really should rest, especially if he wants to be back on his feet by the end of the week."

"I'm on my feet now," Malcolm pointed out.

Clara just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she shooed Malcolm out of the room, giving his back a mix between a shove and a tender pat. "You know damn well what I meant, Malcolm," she said, surprised to see him turn to show her a rare grin as he walked out into the hall.

And just like that, John and Clara were alone in the room. He studied her with a pair of once loved, sad eyes, his smile locked into place. "You went a little older this time, yeah?" he asked, visibly relaxing when he heard Clara's amused tut. "Your friend out there worded it best - you went from nursery robbing to crypt keeping."

Clara scowled. "He didn't actually say that, did he?"

John nodded. "'Fraid so. That's not something I could think of on my own - wouldn't want to, really. Not exactly flattering, is it?"

"No, but that's Malcolm for you: Honest and true and just a bit grumpy," Clara said. Her smile confused John, as did the way her stare trailed off to settle on an image only her mind could see. The sight made her smile deepen, and lit up her eyes like a match finding a hungry candle wick.

"Is he nice at least?" John asked.

Clara's mind gave herself a little tug, drawing her out of her smitten thoughts. She replayed John's question in her head, and found the answer had been waiting on her tongue as if it had longed to escape for weeks, even months. "You were nice once, John. But nice isn't everything, is it? It's not even enough in the end."

"That's fair," John said.

"No it's not. But it's true."

John nodded, keeping silent.

When she stepped forward to give John one last hug, Clara knew that it was more final than any goodbye between them had ever been. It was a quick and short embrace done for the sake of breaking off the last tie that lingered, a way way severe that bloodless little tether that lacked any of the heart that had once flowed between them.

Clara was out of the room and in the hall in a matter of seconds. She didn't look back, not once.

* * *

><p>After retrieving a change of clothes and a few essential items from Malcolm's house ("Nothing work related, you hear?" "Yes, ma'am"), Clara drove back to her flat and prepared for the first relaxing Sunday Malcolm had since his undergraduate years. Loath though she was to consider herself anything close to a nurse, Clara had to admit that she did enjoy the whole care-giving role that seemed to come equipped with the flu diagnosis. It was alarmingly enjoyable to be so obviously needed.<p>

Malcolm relied on her with such a raw honesty that would have made her blush if she stopped to think about it long enough. He accepted everything from mugs of tea to sympathetic little pats on the head with the same weak, grateful smile. If he had to actually be sick, which wasn't often but it still happened enough that it made Clara's heart clench with every sputtering cough and foul, angry retch that rang out from behind the closed bathroom door, he even made sure to whisper his gratitude in a steady, breathless pant.

"Thank you, Clara... Really," Malcolm would say, before breaking off into some rather vulgar remarks comparing her generosity to that of Catholic saints.

"You really don't have to thank me, Malcolm," Clara said each time he muttered a torrent of new praise. She blotted the sweat off his forehead and cheeks, alternating it with a damp wash-cloth she would then leave in a semi-circle around the back of his neck. Clara couldn't help but note the way his throat strained and clenched around every word and breath, as if he were struggling to choose between both absolutely necessary acts.

"Of course I fucking do, you're taking the time out of your otherwise happy little fucking life to care about me," Malcolm would say back every time, with only a few variations to the sentence.

Clara never thought to correct him on this little mistaken phrase. Although she could have gently suggested that she was caring _for _him along with the now happy habit of caring _about_ him, she figured she could let this one error slide. _He's earned it, surely. Look at the state of him._

For the next few hours, Malcolm was a mess. There was no other way to put it, and the harsh truth of this was lessened only by how deeply Malcolm's need for Clara could transform itself into a strange display of grateful tenderness. He would lean heavily on Clara's small shoulder each time she helped him up off the bathroom floor and back into her bedroom, ignoring his sharp protests that he would contaminate the place. And yet no matter how often he griped about bringing his miserable plague into her bed Malcolm would always sink happily into the blankets and pillows, twisting over onto his side and curling up into a knobby little ball of bent arms and legs.

"Thank you," he'd muttered once into Clara's pillow, reaching out blindly for her hand. She offered it to him, surprised at how much strength he still had left to spare when the rest of him looked so hollow and brutally gutted.

"Anytime," she said. Clara stayed crouched at his side until Malcolm drifted off into an uneasy sleep, muttering her name as she pushed herself to her feet and crept quietly out of the room. He might have been dreaming about her, but Clara wasn't sure if Malcolm was the sort of man who had any dreams.

* * *

><p>Later that night at about two hours to midnight, when Clara climbed into the bed on the opposite side of Malcolm, he jarred himself awake with a silent gasp, his eyes flying open. Clara watched as Malcolm turned onto his other side to face her, staring at him aghast, totally taken aback by this sudden show of life. He'd been asleep for almost twelve hours by this point.<p>

Malcolm waited until Clara settled down against her pillows before he did the same, peering wildly into her face as if he hadn't just spent the last several hours half dead with exhaustion. He reached out to cover one of her hands with his, folding his fingers around hers and hiding them in his warm, clammy grasp. "Clara?" he said, his voice a rasp.

"Yes?" Clara asked, glancing between either one of his wide, curious eyes. "Are you all right, Malcolm?"

"I'm going to ask you a personal question, if you don't mind," he said, speaking with a surprising amount of prim, proper formality. "And I would like very much for you to answer it to the best of your ability."

Clara could only stare at him. _Is this the fever talking? _she wondered. "Okay?" she said, prompting him further. "Go on. Ask it, then."

"Why did John owe you a favour?" he asked. It was the same question he'd posed to her that morning, only now he seemed so intent on an answer that Clara wasn't sure she had it in her to deny him one. Especially not after what she'd done yesterday down at Number Ten.

Even so, she wasn't ready. Not yet.

Clara's mouth twitched, not sure if it wanted to be a frown or a smirk. "Stopped with the nicknames, have you?" she said.

Malcolm waited, watching her.

Shifting her eyes to Malcolm's cheek, noting the way half of his expression was lit up by a thick bar of silvery moonlight while the rest of him remained encased in shadow, Clara lined up her thoughts as best she could. "He owed me for the whole relationship, if you want the horrible truth about it," she said, her voice shifting down into a whisper. "He owed me for every single tear and kiss and every single wasted time I let him touch me."

The darkness in the room around them was so thick and absolute that it seemed in danger of carting away every secret of her heart unless Clara released them in short, hushed breaths, pouring the words ever so gently into Malcolm's patient ear. Malcolm edged closer to her in the bed, still holding tightly onto her hand. Again he waited for Clara to find the words.

Clara closed her eyes. It was easier to bare her heart when she didn't have to look into the eyes of the person witnessing such a tender, vulgar display. "We didn't exactly end as much as we just sort of... fell apart. But at least it was a spectacular finish. Proper embarrassing, all layers of melodrama packed in as if we were on _Eastenders_. But it was still impressively awful. Can't deny that."

Somewhere outside a bird began to sing, mistaking the moon and the streetlamps for the light of day. Clara listened to its call, trying to place it. _A nightingale. It must be._

"Is this the same John who fucked off for nearly a month because he missed a connecting flight?" Malcolm asked. Clara opened her eyes and saw that he had shifted his gaze into the moonlight over her shoulder, his eyes clouding over with the effort it took to force every thought through his sluggish, tired mind. "Same lad who hitched it all the way back to London from Finland, yes?"

Clara nodded. "Yeah, that's John. Surprised you remembered that story. I didn't think I'd actually called him by name when I told you."

"You'd mentioned that a once dear friend had gone and done a terribly stupid thing that left you extremely unhappy."

"Yeah? Wonder what the hell I brought that up for."

"We may have had some white zinfandel," Malcolm said. "And I may have asked when was the last time you'd ever been properly scared."

They faded into silence, both of them taking turns look at and away from each other. Malcolm squeezed Clara's hand as the nightingale picked up another round of its song.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Do you honestly want to know?"

"Yes," he said.

Clara shut her eyes again, but the gentle pressure of Malcolm's hand and the warmth of his presence made her dare to open her eyes and look at him when she spoke again. "It's nothing special. Not exactly original either," she said.

"You're stalling," he pointed out.

"I'm prefacing," Clara argued. "There's a bit of a difference."

"I know diversion tactics when I hear them," Malcolm said. "It is sort of my job to create them."

Clara laughed. She couldn't deny that. "Look it's - it's silly. Really, it is. And I know by drawing it out like this I've sort of built it up to be more important than it actually is, and I'd be sorry for that if I thought it'd be worth an apology. But it's not."

"Clara -"

"I found him with someone else," she said, moving her eyes away from his at the last second. Clara didn't want to see the flash of pity that might appear there, but she was more afraid of how much she might like the anger that was sure to flare up as well. Her keen appreciation for Malcolm's temper and all the ways he could transform it into acts and words of pleasure when they were alone together never failed to both amaze and worry her. This appreciation, no this _adoration _for Malcolm's bitterness was part of the reason why Clara had found it so easy to dismiss John's question about whether Malcolm was nice. And she had been nothing but honest when she told him nice wasn't enough - not for her. She needed a heart that had something else as its emotional core besides a basic, but often lacking, human trait.

Clearing her throat, Clara chanced a glance over at Malcolm's eyes and found nothing but muted patience waiting for her there. She could have kissed him if he hadn't started to cough again, clamping his thin limps shut to trap each rattling hack in. Clara waited until he was finished, then she started to speak again.

"I found him with someone else and then I found out that, according to her, _I _was the someone else," she said, laughing. "Would have picked up on that sooner if he and I hadn't gone off through Europe for half a year, and if Amy hadn't - if I didn't have to spend a few months helping out her and Rory." Clara paused, thinking back to that lonely, lost time of her life just after college. "Do you know that John told this other woman the reason he had to leave her behind was because he was studying abroad? _Studying abroad._ Can you imagine falling for that?"

_It's almost as pathetic as falling for the man who came up with that excuse, _Clara thought.

"What made you go with him? Did you... elope or something?" Malcolm wondered.

Clara shook her head fast. "No, I would never," she said at once. "Not... Not with John. He's not the marrying kind. And I went because... Well, we just liked to travel. He and I were always running to one place or another, but we never ended up where we meant to be half the time." She smiled, not quite understanding why. Nor could she understand why her eyes were starting to burn with traitor tears. "Trying to find your way in a city or even a country you've never been in before, living on a shoe-string budget - it was all such a rush, you know? Strange and awful and terrifying, especially when you had to find a safe place to sleep for the night. But all that panic still wound up as something wonderful, like a dream. I got a chance to live someone else's life with someone I loved. Who wouldn't take up a chance like that if they got a shot at it?"

Malcolm said nothing.

"Then Amy had her... accident," Clara said, rephrasing it at the last second to preserve her friend's privacy. They may not have spoken to each other since the break up with John, but Clara still respected Amy and Rory's loss too much to let it out without full and proper reverence to what had been lost. "Rory got in touch with us just outside of... Florence, I think it was. We were about six months in to the holiday when he told us the news. He didn't ask us to come back, but I could hear it in his voice - god, I'll never forget that awful, hollow croak. Rory needed us. They both needed us." Clara paused and took a breath. "The four of us used to be like a family growing up. We had to be, I mean. Our actual family always seemed to fall just a bit short when we needed them the most."

Clara cleared her throat and drew back the tears. She was surprised to find the sudden warm on her cheek was not from the tears that she had failed to keep back but from Malcolm's hand cupping her face. He stroked the trail of Clara's tears away with his fingertips, handling her as if she were a small pane of cracked glass.

"I told John we had to go back home right away and help them. It was strange, how hard I had to work to convince him. I didn't realise it at first. Probably didn't want to notice it," she admitted, silently noting just how long she had been acquainted with denial. _That old horror's been around y__ears before I walked into Number Ten. Just like my dear friend Dread. _"But I could see some hint of it in his eyes. It showed up right after I told him what happened to Amy, how Rory had broken down when he called. It was right there in front of me like a slap to the face. That one little second of hesitation." Clara frowned as she remembered. "That wasn't like him. Well it was and it wasn't. He wasn't... John's not a bad man, Malcolm. Have you got that? He's just a bit of a coward when it came to problems without a clear and simple solution."

"You do realise that applies just about every fucking thing in life," Malcolm said, chiming in almost despite himself.

"Yeah, I guess so," Clara agreed, surprised that she found not one shred of reluctance inside her.

"And he became a _doctor_, yeah? An actual practising man of medicine?" Malcolm looked understandably horrified at the prospect.

Clara shrugged. "You'll notice he didn't go into psychology," she pointed out. "A physician can still treat problems he can't cure. As long as it's a problem he can literally look at square in the face, John can handle almost anything. It's all that secret, buried emotional stuff he has a slight fault with. Makes him wobble a bit."

"There's a tremendous difference between a wobble and a fucking nosedive down into neglect," Malcolm pointed out.

Clara smiled as she met Malcolm's eyes, grateful that he hadn't moved his hand away from her face despite her lack of tears. "Where did I leave off? Florence?"

He nodded.

"Well after we got back I spent most of my time at Amy and Rory's, helping out where I could. Cleaning, cooking, going around doing a bit of shopping. Housekeeping stuff, you know. Rory couldn't take much time off, not if he wanted to keep his job, and Amy - well, Amy couldn't be alone. Not then," she said, her voice cracking. "I practically lived with them for three months. I think even then I could tell that something was wrong, that something changed. It was like I was running away by not actually going anywhere. I probably would have noticed John's other... lady friend sooner if I'd been a bit braver myself."

The next breath Clara took was long and deep, making her chest expand and her shoulders dart up almost to her ears, like a wince or a way to ward off some terrible inward blow. Malcolm ran his thumb along her cheek again, cupping his fingers around her chin to give it a reassuring squeeze.

"One day I came around to John's flat to surprise him. He hadn't been answering any of our calls - not that that was unusual, but something about it felt different this time. Can't say what it was. Maybe I'm just making it up to make myself feel better," she laughed. "Well, off I went, totally clueless, and another woman answered the door. An older woman. Said her name was Tasha," Clara added with a bitter snort, remembering what John had said to her before she left.

_"You went for a little older this time." Damn right I did, John._

"The best part was when John got home and saw us both sitting on the couch ready to rip him apart," Clara said, her laughter fading off into something like a sob. "I left before she could really pick up steam and start shouting loud enough to wake up everyone in the building. It didn't feel like my fight anymore, none of it did. Our relationship, John... Didn't seem worth it, really."

Clara knew she was skipping over the awful agony that followed from that day forward for almost a full year. She knew that she was almost surgically omitting the way her heart felt split and thrown out across an impossibly wide distance, with just a few stubborn strings still tethered in between either wedge, bringing with them throes of pain that came equipped with some of her once happiest memories. But she didn't see the point in bringing any of that up here, now that she was lying in bed with Malcolm. A half sick Malcolm who probably wouldn't remember a word of this come morning, at that.

"But hey, look. That's all in the past," Clara said, nodding. The words were more for herself than they were for him. "It's all just water under a burnt bridge or... something like that. And now he's done that favour for me, for _us, _so it's not likely I'll ever have to see him again. I'm almost looking forward to that."

"To what?" Malcolm asked. "To not seeing him?"

"Yeah, exactly. I'm anticipating his absence."

Malcolm stared at her for a long while. "Clara, I'm not sure that makes any fucking sense," he said. Clearly his silence had been spent worrying over the statement in a fruitless attempt to wring some kind of sanity from it.

"I don't know if it does either," she admitted.

The nightingale had long stopped singing by the time Malcolm spoke again. Clara was almost certain he'd fallen asleep, so when his voice came from the dark she couldn't help but be surprised.

"Do you ever miss it?" he asked, his voice low and soft, like a murmur following a kiss. Malcolm's face was fully in shadow now, the moon having moved off to the lower end of the bed, revealing only the bump of their bodies beneath her blankets.

"Miss what?" Clara asked.

"Travelling like that. Going wherever you like with him."

Clara thought about this carefully. "Sometimes," she admitted. "Not always - not as much as I used to. Sometimes it feels like it's out of my system, like I scratched that itch and got it all out of the way early on. But every now and then there's a little pang. Just a very little one though," she added, speaking fast. "Besides, I've got my own life and roots here now. I've got a job. I've got a _boyfriend_ - even if he takes offence to the word."

"It's not offence," Malcolm said. Clara could almost see him rolling his eyes in the dark and she couldn't help but giggle. "And look even your old pal Chinman agreed that it sounded awful."

"You're still on that I see," Clara said, shaking her head. Her hair crinkled against the pillow, scratching her cheek.

"I'll get around to getting over it eventually," Malcolm said. "Let us complain a bit 'til then, it's refreshing."

"It's annoying," Clara said. "I mean, how are you ever going to explain me to your mum and sister if you don't feel comfortable calling us what we are?"

The silence that followed this question was a terrifying thing for Clara to endure, especially after what she had just revealed to Malcolm. His wordlessness sent a shiver into Clara's heart as if someone had rammed a spike down through it. Fear punctured her bones and muscle, and suspicion shoved the iron wedge further until she could almost feel it digging into her back. "Malcolm?" she asked, her voice strained.

"D'you know how that doctor said I should take it easy for the rest of the week?" Malcolm began.

"You didn't answer me," Clara pointed out, not wanting to be distracted.

"I'm getting there. The answer's like a little fucking maze for a rat, yeah? Gotta let it move around a bit before it gets to the end."

"So get to the end. Now."

Malcolm moved his fingers into Clara's hair, stroking the strands and winding them around his fingertips. "How about we both take off for a couple days, right? Bit of a forced holiday. Just about the only good thing this fucking flu could end up doing for us. I can take you up to meet my mother, she's been asking about you again."

Clara knocked Malcolm's hand away from her face and out of her hair as she sat up with a start. She stared at him in the almost absolute darkness, her eyes feeling too wide for her face again, like they were about to pop. "Is this seriously the fever talking?" she asked.

Malcolm scoffed. "No, it's your boyfriend," he said. He was serious. Or at least he sounded as serious as a man could be with a clogged nose.

"Okay, so about half fever, half actually you. Got it." Clara settled back on her pillow before another thought made her jolt up again. "Hang on - you told your mum about me?"

"I did, yes," Malcolm said. "I told her all about the tiny sharp-tongued girlfriend from Blackpool ages ago. Right around the time Sam found out, I think. May have mentioned you were a teacher back then too."

Clara gave Malcolm's chest a sharp poke as if she could jar the lies out of him and force out the truth. "You actually said I was your girlfriend?" she asked, leaning closer to his face. "You said that _exact word_? To your mother?"

"_Yes, _Clara. Christ, do you want it all down in writing? Should I carry it down the fucking mountain for you on stone tablets?" Malcolm's expression betrayed his harsh tone. What little of it Clara could see as her eyes adjusted to the darkness showed that he was grinning, devilishly amused at the impact his words had on her. "I could call her up now, you know, but I don't think she'd be happy to drag herself out of bed at this fucking hour. She needs her rest, see. All eighteen hours of it."

Clara reached down for his face and squished it between her fingers, making him look like an angry puffer fish again. "Let me get this straight. You told your mother that you, a man well into his forties -" Malcolm squirmed at this, but Clara wouldn't let him speak, not yet, " - had a new _girlfriend_. And yet your heart all but stops dead if I try to turn that one around on you."

Malcolm reached up to force Clara's hand off his face just as he had done last night. Only this time he wove his fingers in between hers, placing them alongside her sharp, strained knuckles. He didn't say anything, accurately sensing that Clara hadn't quite finished yet.

"There's a precedence for behaviour like that, you know. Goes all the way back to Shakespeare," she said, eyeing him sharply as she shifted her position until she was on top of him. Settling down on his narrow hips, Clara pulled her hand off of Malcolm's face and created a little pillow with her hands on his chest. Listening to the quick stutter of his heart and smiling as his arms immediately locked into place behind her back, Clara closed her eyes and finished her thought. "Queen Gertrude, when asked by Hamlet to describe her thoughts on the Player Queen, says one key, crucial phrase. Do you know what that was?"

"I fucking do not protest too fucking much," Malcolm grumbled - and then he broke off, realising that by making this claim he was, indeed, protesting once more.

Clara laughed, lifting her head up to give Malcolm's chin a quick kiss. "When can we go see her?" she asked. "Your mum, I mean."

Malcolm shrugged, his hands moving up and down Clara's back in a slow, lazy caress. "I was thinking later in the week, if you'd like," he said. His eyes slid shut as he spoke, and Clara could tell his exhaustion was catching up to him again. "Don't want to show up when I'm still a moving biohazard."

Lowering her head back down to his chest, Clara listened as Malcolm's heart slowed into a steady, soothing rhythm. "That'd be nice," she said, closing her eyes. "Sounds like a good plan, Malcolm."

He murmured indistinctly in response. The nightingale started to sing again, lulling them both into a heavy, dreamless sleep.


	14. The Heart of it All

**Notes: **Consider this your holiday gift, dear readers~ I intended for this to be a short, deeply introspective chapter about the relationship, packed full of angst and emotion and blah blah - instead I got Malcolm and Clara doing some last minute Christmas shopping, her thoughts on Jamie, and a bit of chatter about Malcolm's niece (like a name for starters). The introspection's still there to justify the chapter's existence but apparently I can't write a short chapter to save my fucking life. How quaint.

There's a few references to certain jokes made in _The Missing DoSAC Files, _a book that's sort of extended canon for _The Thick of It,_ and in the spirit of not spoiling either the joke or fun parts about that book I won't say what they are, but I absolutely take no credit for them. I recommend that you buy that book, it's such a treat.

Thanks again for all of your amazing reviews and messages. Your enthusiasm means so much, and it's always such a comfort to know people are enjoying this as much as they are. We're at the middle of the fic now, so from here on out things are going to get a bit less... fun, I guess?

See you on the other side of the Christmas special. Here's to hoping everyone shuts the fuck up about whether or not Clara's staying o/

* * *

><p><strong>The Heart of it All<strong>

Two days before Christmas, Clara woke up to Malcolm's lips pressing down in gentle kisses along her shoulder and neck. Another steady mound of snow was piling up outside the window, but its accompanying chill couldn't reach her from where she lay tangled up in bed, buried beneath blankets and sheets and warm arms and even warmer caresses. Malcolm was helping with most of that, naturally.

"Malcolm?" she muttered. His name was as warm in her mouth as the sound of her voice was to his ears. Something to cherish and treasure each time.

Ducking his head to continue kissing her neck, Malcolm moved his mouth and breath over the spot where Clara's heart beat the hardest, curiously intent on tasting the skin there. He seemed in no hurry to address the unspoken question she had contained within his name, or in saying any words at all for that matter. That only made Clara more suspicious.

Shifting around until she was on her back, Clara asked, "What do you think you're doing?"

Wondering how her eyes could still manage to be so round and large, like wells deep and dark and so dearly loved, while she was half asleep, Malcolm propped himself up on an elbow and tried his best to look - not _innocent, _but certainly less conspicuous.

"Just seeing if you're awake," he said, running his fingertips across her collarbone and then up along the other side of her neck.

Clara closed those lovely dark eyes, all the better to focus and feel him.

Malcolm's touch moved in the sort of languid, lingering caress that made shivers run down Clara's back, shivers he could feel in his own skin sometimes. He still wasn't sure how that happened, or why it had taken him almost half a life to find out how to be as _receptive _as he was perceptive. But as long as Clara was around, Malcolm tried not to ask himself too many of those nagging "_why_" questions. They kept him up later than he wanted to be - and he already had a godawful time falling asleep as it was.

"You can see with your mouth and fingers now?" she asked, her challenge drawing off into a hiss as Malcolm resumed his kisses, humming against her throat. Clara's eyes flew open only to slam shut again, her lashes fluttering. The shadows of them moved over her cheek like dark wings. "Aren't you just a man of endless talent."

"So nice of you to finally acknowledge it," he laughed, admiring how her face looked in that moment. He fell in love again to the sound of her hitched breath and the worryingly lovely sight her pursed lips. Every moment spent with Clara seemed to be an awful, awe-filled way to how deeply and daringly he could fall for her all over again - and she hardly had to do anything.

_Lucky her._

"I've noticed it plenty of times before," Clara said, squirming as his teeth put in a quick appearance. "Must've just... slipped your mind." She kept her eyes open in a sort of determined, furious stare up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the morning burn away to pale shapes and tones of grey. She took a breath to clear her head, needing all the air she could get as Malcolm continued to lavish attention on her.

_He's confident enough without me contributing to his engorged - ego, _Clara thought just as Malcolm began to suck on the side of her neck, making her squirm.

"You just couldn't let me sleep, could you?" she asked, forcing her fingers out of Malcolm's hair before they tugged hard enough to yank his head back. Both of them were disappointed this didn't come to pass.

The kisses stopped at once. She felt Malcolm frown against her throat. "We've been over this before," he said.

That sounded like a complaint. It was Clara's turn to frown now. "We've been over this before because you won't stop _doing _it."

"Look, I've _told _you. It's no fun being awake this early by myself," Malcolm argued, looking absolutely unperturbed by the fact that this argument was, indeed, a bit silly.

_NoMFup, _he thought at once, grinning at his own little joke. Silly though it may be, the argument also had the very useful function of being absolutely true. It really _was_ no fun listening to the sounds of distant cars and cries and dogs and backwards birds singing when Clara was all tucked away in her dreams, happy and peaceful and snoring lightly (though she would deny this 'til she was red in the face, bless). It really _was _no fun lying awake staring at the ceiling, and then staring at her back, and then closing his eyes (because who _stares _at a sleeping person?), and then opening them again as he shifted around to face the other side, glaring hard at the wall as if that might lull him into his own steady slumber.

Malcolm had long his was not a life meant for the recommended eight hours of sleep. He also had long known that the best he could hope for was three and a half hours on average, with perhaps more on weekends, and maybe less on the even more rare times he had to go to bed without Clara already there to warm and welcome him. What he _didn't _know was how tremendously fucking exhausting it would be to resist the urge to wake Clara up so she could share in this frustration with him. She shared in just about everything else. Why not this?

Clara pushed her fingers against his forehead and gave his head a short, sharp shove. "I'm sure most of the greater London area that keeps to your mad schedule would rally in support if they were in bed with us right now," she fired off, speaking far too quickly for someone who had only just woken up. "But sadly it's just me here with you. Me, your very sleepy wife – who has her _own _sleep schedule to keep in mind. A schedule that's very much directly opposite of yours."

As Clara spoke, Malcolm adjusted his positioned so that he lay on top of her, positioning his narrow waist between her legs. "D'you know what _else _is directly opposite of yours?" he asked, grinning down at her impishly.

Clara stared at him. She wouldn't blush. No, she wouldn't. She also wouldn't allow herself to pay too much attention to how he felt against her - _no, just keep that part of your mind firmly locked and closed, Oswald. _

Too late. "That's not even clever_,_ " she huffed. "And it doesn't even work, we have different – Malcolm, all I _wanted_ was to sleep."

"_You can _sleep, I'm not here to fucking stop you," he said, settling down lower so he could rest his head against her heart. Malcolm's long hands slid under her back to pull himself even closer to her chest. "As the past four hours have expertly demonstrated, you have zero fucking problem dozing off for a nice long spell when I'm in bed with you," he added, sounding just a touch annoyed.

Clara could feel Malcolm's pulse thudding away against her lower stomach, just above the heat growing between her legs. _No, stop it. I insist that you stop. _"I'm afraid that says more about you than it does about me," she said, giving the top of his head a sympathetic pet. "Why are you up so early, by the way? You don't have to go in to work today."

"I'm an almost free man up through the new year – _officially_, that is," Malcolm said. His voice rumbled in that lower register they both knew Clara loved, travelling down through her chest to rattle her bones. Her own voice, soft though it was, had a similar effect on him. "Unofficially I can be called upon at any fucking time to cheerfully beat trouble-makers to plasma-dripping pulp. Might add a bit of tinsel to the puddle when I'm done with it, just to make sure it's festive, you know?" he laughed, pretending to seriously consider this thought. "Maybe throw in some holly as well. That old biddy down the way's still growing it, yes?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't bother going anywhere near her garden," Clara said. "Or near her end of the block at all. She's got that little guard dog now, remember?"

Malcolm drifted into a thoughtful silence. "Is that the same mangy fucking rodent that chased off the stray cat you've been feeding?" he asked.

Clara nodded. "The very same. Some people call them chihuahuas, you know."

"And do you know what I call those people?" he asked.

Clara stroked the back of Malcolm's head down to his neck, her cool fingers clashing with the warmth that always seemed to exude from his skin. "I think I can take a guess," she said, smiling.

When Malcolm lowered his head back down to her chest, Clara decided it was time to spring the next question on him. "No really, why _are _you awake this early? Did you stay up late writing angry emails for Sam to clean up again?"

Malcolm's silence was as guilty as any confession. Clara sighed. "That's not fair, Malcolm. You know you shouldn't bother her in the middle of the night."

"Now that's a bit unfair to me. It's not strictly _bothering_ if it's done because –" he began, but Clara didn't let him get too far into that sentence.

Using her free hand to create a little shield with her palm, Clara pressed her hand down flat against Malcolm's mouth. "Yes, yes, you're an incredibly important man who has incredibly important and angry things to say," she mumbled. "And if you didn't get it done in the middle of the night then you'd never get that mess out of you head and would probably... I dunno, drop dead or something."

Malcolm shifted his head so he could free his mouth. "I can't help but notice you don't sound too troubled by this possibility," he said.

Clara rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not troubled, you're too stubborn to die like that. You'd probably just linger on out of pure spite and malice anyway." She smiled as she said it, so Malcolm could know she meant no harm at all, that she meant nothing but love. "Look, the only part that troubles me is how you manage to stay angry for so long," she said, now adding her nails to the mix as she stroked his hair. "I can hear you grinding your teeth in my sleep sometimes. That's not right. It's not healthy."

Malcolm shrugged, clearly unconcerned. He was too focused on the warmth in her voice to care much about the disastrous state of future dentist visits. "I'll have to go for the iron dentures next time I'm in the chair," he said. "Remind me to ask for them, yeah? Just get a big fucking metal bear-trap soldered on to my jaw."

"Please don't," she said. But she was smiling, meeting Malcolm's wide, devious grin with one of her own.

"It would make _certain_ marital activities a bit less than satisfying," he admitted, giving Clara a knowing glance as he wriggled closer just to drive the point home.

The smile slipped off her face. "Well, now I'm awake _and _traumatised. Thank you."

"You're very welcome," he said.

Clara tapped her fingers against the crown of Malcolm's head and pushed herself up, fully intending to shove him off as gently as she could. Unfortunately her dear husband had other plans.

Flattening his hands down against the bed, leaving her back briefly unattended, Malcolm's arms tensed from his wrists up to his shoulders. His arms were thinner now, both due to age and the recent stint of three hours of sleep a night, and Clara could see where the muscle and skin both strained and sank. Malcolm straightened his neck, looked Clara dead in the eye, and made sure that his gaze was full of a warm, dizzying heat, the same kind he felt each time they lay like this. The same kind of heat she could feel building up through her body, no matter how much her mind insisted otherwise.

Clara recognised that look without delay. "Malcolm?" she asked, her heart caught in a sudden wire trap of anticipation.

She watched carefully, her heart quickly kicking off into a rapid beat, as Malcolm kissed the bit of skin right between her breasts. His lips lingered as she let out a tiny sigh, enjoying the sound. He kissed her again, moving lower this time. Each touch of his lips was as gentle as the kisses he'd pressed against her shoulder and neck, like warm little whispers that could freeze and tease and excite and enrage in equal turns, sometimes in the same second.

As Malcolm bent his head lower, sliding further down her body, a thought finally clicked into place inside Clara's head. She waited until Malcolm's lips reached her stomach before she decided to speak, thinking that with his eyes out of her line of sight she might find it a bit easier to keep her thoughts clear. She had no such luck, alas. Not this morning.

Clara writhed beneath him, her back arching up as Malcolm kissed both above and below her navel. She was almost moaning as he gave each spot a quick, harmless bite. The bastard. "Is this why you wanted me to wake up?" she asked, suppressing a gasp.

Malcolm didn't answer. Not immediately. Moving one hand under her back, Malcolm ran his fingers down to the small dent just at the base of her spine. Pressing the ends of his nails in a touch that was feather-light but monstrously enticing all the way down her left thigh, Clara actually _felt _Malcolm's mouth slip into a grin as he held his mouth against her skin. His lips were poised right above the aching warmth that had been building steadily inside Clara's stomach for the past few minutes. The _bastard_.

"Maybe," Malcolm said, moving his head even lower down to kiss the inside of her thigh. He didn't speak again for the next deliriously satisfying fifteen minutes. His lips were understandably busy, not to mention his tongue and even a few of his fingers. It was easily the most overzealous "_good morning" _that Clara had ever received, even if it barely involved words on Malcolm's part _._ But that wasn't a problem. Clara was making quite enough noise for the both of them.

* * *

><p>Later, after they both found their way down into the kitchen for breakfast, Malcolm brought up the surprising subject of some last minute shopping he had to get done – shopping he would be "ever so fucking grateful" not to do alone.<p>

"If you would be so kind, of course, " he added, smiling at Clara as he picked up the dishes to drop into the sink.

Clara watched Malcolm walk off, noticing how his shoulders looked too stiff, perhaps even a little guarded. "So _this _is why you woke me up with all that lip action," she said, more amused than she was astonished. Ignoring Malcolm's affronted glare, she continued. "You wanted to sweeten me up so you could ask me to go out shopping with you. _Christmas_ shopping, no less. When it's _two __days _before Christmas. Brilliant plan, really. Well done. _Stellar._"

"Right, yeah, you've got me," Malcolm snorted, washing his hands at the tap and drying them on a nearby wash-cloth. "I was far more fucking interested in having your company through the local festive shitstorm than I was in making you come," he argued. But Clara still wasn't fully convinced.

"It was both though, wasn't it? It's okay if it was both," she said, grinning. "I won't get angry. Promise. Still too nice and relaxed from the action to care much."

"Do me a favour and share some of it, then. I'm too fucking sour for an off day – and that's _me _saying that, right?"

Clara stood up from the couch in a trice and all but skipped over to Malcolm, wrapping him in her arms for a tight, rattling hug. "How's this?" she asked, tucking her head against his chest, swaying him back and forth on the spot.

"It's a start," he admitted. "Better than fuck all. … Thanks."

"Would it also cheer you up to know that today is technically an anniversary of ours?" Clara asked.

Malcolm paused. His mind churned away fast, firing off a series of dates and times and places and activities that could possibly be affixed to this day. Very few came up. "It's not that Tesco run-in, is it?" he said, though he was a bit more certain than he sounded.

Clara nodded, as pleased with him as she was proud that she even remembered. "It is indeed the Tesco run-in - well, it's the Tesco run-in _post-poned _five days. You had to work on the actual day, I'm afraid."

Malcolm grumbled something that could have been an apology if Clara had let him finish it. But she didn't want to hear apologies now, not from him. Not from the man who had made her say all those impressively filthy things and cry out in a chorus of marvellously indecent sounds.

"C'mon, Scrooge. No frowning. We've got a Christmas list to cross off," she said, patting his back.

Malcolm put his hands on Clara's shoulders and held her out at arms length. He leaned down close, putting his face right up against hers. It was a dangerous thing to do, considering how much he rather loved her face. And her eyes. And that dimple. And the way she could match his smirks with her own wicked little sickle sneers.

"Don't you ever call me that again," he said. But his solemn, forbidding expression didn't last long once she started to laugh. It never did. And then Malcolm was hugging Clara again, his shoulders relaxed, no longer guarded - not as long as Clara was in his arms.

* * *

><p>The sky outside was granite grey by the time they left the house and arrived in the busy, wild heart of London. Clara looked at the stretch of dark clouds overhead, a clear promise of more snow. But it wasn't the weather that worried her as much as the day itself.<p>

"It's quite literally only a few hours before Christmas," she said again, waiting for Malcolm to catch up before she held out her hand for his. "It'll be absolute chaos no matter where we go, and there may be far too many screaming children around for either of us to handle. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?"

"I have been out during the Christmas season before, sweetheart. I know what to expect." Malcolm took Clara's hand and fell into step next to her. "Look, we're not going to fucking hurl ourselves into the Yuletide snake pit for long, alright? Only a few hours at most. We can handle that with no problem. And it'll be nice to get out of the house for a change, eh?" His heart hung in this question far more than he wanted to admit. It was with an alarming wave of relief that he saw Clara nod, clearly in agreement.

"Right, well, all I'm saying is this person better be worth the trouble," she said, but she wasn't half as resistant to the outing as she seemed. It _was _nice to spend time with Malcolm outside of the same four walls. _It's almost as if we're on a proper date, like a normal couple__._

Clara started talking again to distract herself from this surprisingly painful thought. "Who exactly are we shopping for anyway? Not your niece, I thought we got her taken care of weeks back. Before she and your sister left for Majorca."

"No, Eleana's set," Malcolm said, squeezing Clara's hand. This tiny form of contact sent a thrill along every single one of her nerves. Knowing that he dared to do this in public filled Clara with a strange fire, something bold and reckless and brutal.

"Well it's not Amy and Rory - we sent them off for a second honeymoon in Thailand."

"Yes, and I'm quite miffed that you got in a facial joke before I could. It was my turn to make Rory blush. Amy and I had a bet on."

Clara shook her head. Her reconciliation with her two dearest friends two years back had been as unexpected as it was thoroughly welcomed, but even she couldn't have guessed just how well Malcolm and Amy would get along._ Must be a Scottish thing. _"Focus, Malcolm. We're talking about gifts here."

"It's just for some sad sacks from around the office. Sam helped handle most of the little people. DoSAC and the like. But there are a few stragglers."

"And they are - ?"

"Jamie, Robyn Murdoch – you haven't met her yet, too much of an hazard – and that stringy knobhead, Ollie. Ollie Reeder. You stole his coffee after he implied you were of a certain professional persuasion, remember?"

All three names made Clara frown but all for entirely different reasons. "Jamie makes sense," she started to say. "He's your best friend, of course you should buy something for him. Though when I say friend, I'm being just a bit too nice."

"Are you?"

"I am. I mean he's the sort of friend who runs out on you in a crucial moment – but at least you can be sure that you''ll find him again. Just look for the trail of blood."

"Don't cast judgement on the wee man, sweetheart," Malcolm said, though something about her tone made him smirk. "You don't know him like I do."

"I am not casting judgement," Clara said, shaking her head. "He was very nice when I met him - four years ago. For five minutes. He even helped me into my robe."

"What?"

"How is he, do you know?" Clara asked, enjoying the way Malcolm peered down at her with a sudden spasm of muscle and skin tightening his neck.

"He's alive and well - and seriously considering going back to seminary school," Malcolm said.

"What?" Clara would have stopped dead on the pavement if he weren't holding onto her hand.

Malcolm gently tugged her along around the corner, keeping Clara from knocking into a collection of prams full of shrieking children. "I'm joking, yeah?" he laughed, grinning down at her. "Just like you were about the robe."

"Well as long as Jamie's happy. Or close to it. That's what matters." Bone-freezing wind swept over Clara's face, making her shiver. "And _yes_ I was joking so you can stop glaring at me."

It sounded like a trite wish even to Clara's ears, but she meant every word as sincerely as a cold, grumpy person being glared at by an angry grey owl could be. Clara had nothing but fond wishes to spare for Malcolm's verbally violent friend, even if she had only met him by sheer accident one day.

Four years ago Jamie had came over to Malcolm's house shouting about an emergency regarding health records and "some leaky fucking mingebox" down at NHS. These less than delightful words came to an abrupt stop as he strode towards the living room and found Clara sitting on the couch, clearly not the audience he had been expecting. That she was only wearing one of Malcolm's shirts and a wide-eyed stunned expression only made Jamie all the more perplexed.

Once the initial confusion and introductions were out of the way (Clara only said her name, not her status in Malcolm's life, not knowing how much had been shared), and Jamie had kindly fetched her robe so she could feel a bit more dressed, Clara found that he was a bizarrely pleasant man, all things considered. Brash and loud and unrepentantly Scottish, but that wasn't exactly a problem.

"So, Clara - did you hear all that, when I came in?" Jamie asked, looking directly into her eyes as she sat down across from him at the table in the front room. He accepted a mug of coffee with a quick nod and quiet "_thanks_", sounding far more polite than she expected a man as vulgar as him could be.

Clara returned his stare with little effort, unmoved by his eyes sharp, hard edge. Jamie had striking blue eyes that were brighter than Malcolm's, and there was something about their cutting intensity that she quite liked. There was no mistaking the thoughts that went on behind eyes like those – no storms, no clouds, no haze at all. His was an honest gaze that could no doubt make most people uneasy.

Her responding smile made Jamie's stare cut in harder, as if he couldn't understand such an expression in response to his question. "I did hear it. A bit of it. But half of it didn't make sense, and the other half felt too much like something I'd be better off ignoring, so... I think I'll just ignore it, yeah? Might be best that way."

It was at this point that Clara had lifted her mug with both hands to have a sip. The golden wedding band most people ignored caught Jamie's attention at once, making his eyes flash. His sudden grin was voracious, but it was his laughter breaking out like an explosion, obliterating the tension in the room, that made Clara jump.

"He fuckin' did _not_," he said, shaking his head.

"He didn't... what? Sorry?"

Jamie pointed at Clara's hand. Her left hand.

Clara wriggled the one finger she thought was the cause of this sudden outburst. "Ah, right. That." She nodded. "Well – yes, he did."

After that, Jamie had been more than happy to wait for Malcolm to come back from the shop so he could hear about the proposal and subsequent wedding in great, painstaking detail. Even now this memory never failed to make Clara smile. She had never seen Malcolm stunned into furious silence before, not even when she surprised him in his office for the first time. That was a happy power only Jamie seemed to possess.

Most of the other interactions she and Jamie had after that were quick messages dashed off on the phone or in emails, and sometimes even the rare birthday card. But two years ago they'd all sort of petered out, until almost seven months passed and she hadn't heard a word at all. She mourned the silence more than she knew how to say. It'd been so comforting to have someone on the outside know about her and Malcolm, someone that could be trusted not to carry the knowledge off to eager ears, less out of respect for the pair of them and more out of a belief that they were - to quote him directly - "deliriously fucking mental to even bother making it more than a one off." But he'd wished them well despite this, and then he'd laughed as he wished them even better than that, and it was this laughter and the mad, delightful force that was Jamie's entire presence that Clara found herself missing more than she once thought.

And she knew it could only be worse for Malcolm.

Clara truly wished she saw more of Jamie, though she had enough sense to guess that this wasn't likely to happen soon. Not only because their professinoal circles had absolutely nothing to do with each other, but with another reason - a tall, skinny, grey-haired reason.

Malcolm hadn't touched upon the specifics, but she knew enough of their falling out to say that the blame could rest mostly on the stress of the surprise election two years back. Not to mention the conflicting approaches both men took to their work. Personally – and she was still trying to think of a way to explain this to Malcolm – Clara sided with Jamie on the whole thing. Jamie only cared at a bare minimum level necessary to get the job done, and get it done thoroughly, without letting the job set its claws in too deep. His seemingly ruthless sense of self-preservation felt far more practical and downright safe in a world determined not to let a damn thing about a person go unscathed. And while Clara wouldn't exactly call Malcolm's methods reckless, she thought his inexhaustible efforts to know and control more than he aught was far more heartbreaking than it was impressive.

_The only impressive part is that he's been able to manage it for this long_, she thought, eyeing him askance.

"You know, I would invite Jamie around for dinner," Malcolm began, completely unaware of the territories into which her thoughts now strayed. "Except I don't know how wise it would be to stay in closed quarters with him once he sees the gift I've got planned."

"And that is?"

Malcolm put on his best dramatic, enraptured murmur, leaning in close. "_The Magnetic Motions of Go Go Boo Boo,_" he intoned. "Some obnoxious fucking coffee table book that can double as a bludgeoning weapon – which I imagine he'll need in the future."

Clara clapped a hand to her mouth to stop from cackling, her shoulders shaking with silent fits. "Is that... Is that the same group in the clipping you showed me?" she asked.

"It is indeed," Malcolm said, nodding. "I was thinking of framing it, you know? Putting it up on the hall next to all our other embarrassing achievements."

"Like our wedding photo."

"Yeah, who thought that was a good fucking idea?" he mused, but he said it with such surprising tenderness that Clara almost blushed.

A build up of far too many people struggling with far too many items – umbrellas, bags, purses, coats – forced Clara and Malcolm to break their once steady stride. They slowed to a crawl and then a stop. Using the time gather her bearings, Clara watched as her breath swirled in the air, twisting into white clouds that disappeared on another gust of the frozen winter wind.

"Right, so like I said: _Jamie_ I can understand," she continued, returning to the original point of the conversation as they began to walk again. "But what about the others, Ollie and – who else was it?"

"Robyn. She's just an up-jumped temp, you know? First came in to cover for Terri – that's another one you won't get to meet. She's also too much of a hazard." Malcolm said all this very quickly, hissing quietly so that every word filtered down to Clara alone. "Terri came back but Robyn stayed on. Only the two of them, right, they're like half a fucking brain stem stitched up together. You can rely on them to occasionally rub together a fucking braincell or two so they can stimulate active thought, but it's not exactly dependable service. You'd get much better use if you stuck a dildo onto an oscillating fan and let that run the phones and desk."

Malcolm paused, his mind working fast either to relay information or to dig up what little he had about Robyn.

_Probably to help figure out what to get her, _Clara guessed. This panicked sort of thoughtfulness mixed in with his trademark vulgarity made her smile, oddly touched. "Anything else you want to share?" she pressed.

Malcolm's lips tightened as he continued to think. "There was also some talk about Glenn fancying her," he supplied, frowning.

"Oh, Glenn," Clara chuckled, shaking her head. "That's another one I haven't seen in a while. He's the one that found out about us before you even said anything, right? Because of the ring? Please tell me he's not thinking of becoming a priest as well."

"No, but the next time I catch him trying to use Twitter, I've promised to work the fear of god so far into him that each time he shits a psalm comes out."

"I'm really glad you decided to share that with me, Malcolm. It's such a delightful image."

Malcolm's smile threw Clara briefly off the path of her disgust – but only briefly."So – any ideas?" he asked, stroking her hand with his thumb and guiding into the pocket of his woollen trenchcoat.

Now _this _was a distraction. _Did he do it on purpose? _He might have. "Well I can say right now, Malcolm, if you wanted to play Cupid for them, then you picked the wrong holiday," Clara teased, smirking.

The look that passed over Malcolm's face was a mix between a scowl and a horrified twitch. "Sweetheart, the less time I spend thinking about those worthless sacks of plasma fucking, the happier I'll be - and the more time I can spend on _my _fucking."

Clara pushed her hair over her shoulder, ignoring the cold that slid down her neck and inside her coat. "Do you want to try that one again?" she asked, glad that the crowd had thinned out so they couldn't be easily overheard. The Yumchaa they had passed a few paces back had taken away most of the clutter, especially the younger, louder set.

"_Our _fucking," Malcolm corrected, huffing.

Clara smiled and gave his arm a pat. "Well, look – describe Robyn to me. What's she like? As a person, not a worker. I think I know your feelings on that."

"I don't know," Malcolm said at once, peering over his shoulder at the Yumchaa with a sudden stab of longing. He turned back to face front, scowling and muttering about hipsters. "Nervous? Quiet? You can't look at her for too long without her dripping like she's about to fucking weep."

"Is that when everyone looks at her or just you?"

The look on Malcolm's face was all the answer she needed.

"Right, that answers that. We should get her something nice. Something relaxing and sweet and... okay maybe not _sweet,_" Clara added, catching Malcolm's horrified glare, "but a sort of peace offering, yeah? Both in the sense that you mean her no harm and that you want her to calm down."

As Clara finished this sentence, Malcolm turned around to head back up the way they had come.

Clara frowned. "Malcolm, I thought –?"

"We're still going to shop," he insisted, squeezing her hand. "I'm just tasting one of those big fuck off brownies, yeah? We can share it. It's about the size of your stringy little forearm anyway."

_Chocolate. Right._ Clara should have known. "Go on, then," she sighed, knowing that he couldn't resist this den of hipsters that, despite the customers it attracted, was really quite a lovely place. They very few times they had normal couple dates, both before and during their marriage, had taken place in several Yumchaas. Clara had grown fond of it despite herself. "But get me some tea!"

Clara waited outside while Malcolm went in to get his brownie fix, stomping her feet against the cold pavement to keep warm. It was always colder without him around, but the chill had forced itself into her boots, down past her socks and onto her toes with a brutal vengeance.

Malcolm was back a few minutes later, muttering loudly about long lines and crowds. He handed Clara her tea and then broke off an edge of the brownie with his long thin fingers. She watched him push it onto his tongue, wondering how one man could make something as basic as eating seem terribly indecent.

"Happy now?" Clara asked, peering up at him.

"Very much so, yes," he said.

Clara watched as Malcolm's eyes glinted with a new, curious spark. A smile moved over his mouth, which she couldn't help but notice was dotted here and there with chocolate crumbs. With steadily mounting suspicion, Clara watched Malcolm break off another little piece and hold it out for her – but he moved his hand away when she tried to take it.

She scowled, catching on fast. "Malcolm, you are _not _feeding me in public," Clara said – or at least, she _wanted _to say this. As soon as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth to speak, Malcolm poked the little bit of brownie into her mouth, right between her teeth.

Pulling his fingers back before Clara could chomp down on his fingers – it'd be a lie to say she wasn't at least thinking about it – Malcolm grinned and took another piece for himself. "Good, yes?"

"... Yes," she muttered.

"Come on, Clara. Chin up and off we fuck," he said.

Instead of dignifying this with a response, Clara reached up to take another larger piece of brownie from where it lay on the napkin in Malcolm's hand. Not once did her glare weaken as she met his eyes, nor did her scowl fade, though it was getting harder to maintain with every bite she ate. The brownie was, unfortunately, very delicious. And Malcolm was, as always, so absurdly endearing when he had a little sugar in him – particularly if it was from something chocolate-based. It was just too hard for Clara to stay in such a glummy mood when there was such a nice treat at her fingertips.

_And the brownie's not half bad either, _she thought, smiling at her own joke.

"What did we decide for Robyn?" Malcolm asked once the tea and the snack were polished off and well-enjoyed.

Clara shrugged, putting her hand back into Malcolm's pocket and leaning in close to his side. "I dunno. Let's throw some nice little care package together. Some candles, maybe those little bath soaps I like – yes the ones _you _hate, I don't care if you hate them, they're not for you anyway – and... a book?"

Malcolm's scowl was a force Clara could sense before she saw it. The sheer depth of the frown, complete with wrinkles (and some more brownie crumbs), made Clara shake her head in amused disbelief. "Don't worry, I'll find one for her while you're off getting Jamie's bludgeoning book," she said.

"This is starting to feel like more of a fucking hassle than it ought to be," Malcolm grumbled, chewing on one side of his mouth and forcing the words out on the other.

"That's what happens when you decide to do something nice for people," Clara sighed, putting on an air of world-weariness that exceeded yours and Malcolm's ages combined. "Clara get nothing but a ball ache for the trouble – but there _is_ a false sense of superiority to look forward to. Might want to focus on that," she added before he could interject.

Malcolm's eyebrows hitched up high on his forehead. He almost turned his body at the waist to face what he clearly assumed would be the most sour of all of Clara's expressions. She was quite pleased to thwart this assumption and greeted him with a cheerful smirk.

"Shut up," she said.

"I haven't said anything," he protested.

"I know but still – shut up. I wasn't serious," she said, still grinning. It was starting to hurt.

"Could've fooled me."

Clara took this in, saying nothing. Malcolm knew her far better than to think she was the secret curmudgeon in the relationship. Regardless of the anxious pits of misery she could fall into, or the lapses of confidence that could jar her as suddenly as the earth tearing itself into one jagged, gaping chasm beneath her feet, Clara really wasn't all that negative of a person. She didn't like to consider herself cynical, just... a little vexed. Worry-prone. But beneath that she really did hope for the best.

Or she wanted to, anyway. And Malcolm knew Clara better than to think otherwise, to her inexhaustible relief.

Right?

_Not now, okay?_ Clara pleaded silently. _Not now, not today, not when we're finally spending time together like – like normal couples do. _"It's nice of you to do this, Malcolm," she said, keeping her voice low. "It's thoughtful – unexpected. They won't know what hit them."

He snorted. "It's not a fucking bombing raid, is it? It's fucking _Christmas._"

Clara joined in with his laugh, glad to see him smiling. There was something endearing about Malcolm's quest to keep even the most frustrating of his work associates on the fringe of his good graces – with the exception of Jamie, of course. That gift seemed to be more of a life-long personal quest to embarrass each other into an early grave. But with that aside, this current quest showed a thoughtfulness that was both crafty and harmlessly cruel, like a blow without the promise of a bruise, or a trap with the teeth removed. Clara knew Malcolm wasn't doing it solely out of the kindness of his heart, that there was much more for him to gain from keeping these people in a state of suspended disbelief about just _how _much he wanted them dead, and in what way – but the kindness was still there. And she appreciated it.

"Alright, let's go. Time to brave the shops." Clara squared her shoulders with a noble attempt at looking brave. "As you said, off we fuck."

Clara kept her voice in a deliberate monotone, but that didn't stop Malcolm from grinning wickedly in response. "Come again?" he asked.

"Steady boy," she muttered – but that only made it worse. And somehow better.

* * *

><p>Once Jamie and Robyn's gifts were squared away, and they had both griped about having to be with the public on what should have been an otherwise lovely day, the real and true trial reared its head. It all came down to the painstakingly momentous task of choosing between visiting the Poundshop for Ollie's gift, or just grabbing the least used bottle from the liquor cabinet at home. Clara shot down this second idea at once.<p>

"You can't do that," she explained carefully, shouting to make herself heard over a passing cluster of teenage boys in Santa caps. They were swivelling their heads round to peer at Clara until her peripheral vision was awash with splotchy faces and lopsided mouths. She tried not to think of them – most boys were just mouths with legs at that age, anyway. All noise and hunger demanding the supply for more than one appetite. Clara had even less patience for them now that she had to teach some. "You gave him a bottle last time he did something useful, remember? He might get suspicious."

"Don't give him more credit than he's worth; he's not half as fucking clever as he wants to be," Malcolm said, gritting his teeth as the boys passed, pressing in just a bit too close on Clara's side than they did on his.

The boys started calling out in an ear-splitting, raucous song. Naturally they had improvised it to address particular features of Clara's face and body they felt deserving of commentary. She would have been offended if it weren't so hopelessly stupid – and if she weren't also currently distracted by the seething mass of rage that was her dear husband. With every line they barked out, Malcolm looked more and more ready to kill with his bare hands.

There was only one thing to do. Clara darted up on her toes and pressed a quick, pacifying kiss to Malcolm's cheek, letting her lips linger for as long as she could hold her balance. "Steady boy," she said again, her voice shifting down into a soft whisper.

Both the kiss and her words' effects were twofold: the boys fell into stunned silence as they slumped off, and Malcolm's face broke free from his fury, showing instead a crooked, gentle smile. Clara were more proud of this last part than she cared about the first.

Clara lapsed into a thoughtful silence as they began to stroll somewhat aimlessly around the streets. Malcolm plodded along next to her, occupied with his own thoughts. Clara smiled as he wove his arm around her waist, drawing her in closer as if to huddle against both the cold and the crowds.

"D'you still have that fucking eyesore of a scarf at home?" he asked, his eyes bright with a look she knew well. He was plotting something.

"The red one that's horribly itchy and puts me into a scratching fit?" she asked. "Yeah, it's in the back of the closet. … Why?"

"We'll give him that, yeah? It's perfect."

"Please tell me how it's perfect. Unless you're planning to strangle him with something nice and cosy?"

Malcolm nodded, his eyes glinting even brighter. "Didn't fucking think of that. I like it. But no, it's mostly a way for us to get a laugh at his expense," he said. "He and the scarf are like near kin, right? They have the same level of reliable cognitive functioning, and they both have the unintended effect of making you want to claw your fucking eyes out. See? Perfect."

"Excellent choice. Really well done, Malcolm," she said, laying the praise on just a little too thick. "And do you know what, that makes things far easier for us, doesn't it? We can just – turn around," Clara held on tighter to Malcolm's arm and swung him back the way they'd come, " – and very quickly remove ourselves from... What did you call it? The Yuletide snake pit?"

"It's been a little over an hour since we left. We're not headed back now."

"We're not?" Clara wondered. "That's funny - could have sworn we were walking in that general direction."

"Do you have some deeply buried aversion to being seen in public with me?" he asked, truly curious. Clara didn't notice the hidden layer to his question until it was too late.

"Considering how rarely we actually go out in public together, I'm going to have to say no, Malcolm. No, I'm not. I can't be averse to something I'm hardly used to."

Clara intended for this to be a joke delivered in an awkward, barbed bundle meant to inspire a laugh. But of course she botched it. Of course it came out all wrong, sounding far too true than she wanted it to be.

Malcolm fell silent, his hand tightening on her waist in a hold both possessive and pleading. He seemed to drift away even as he pushed his fingers down hard enough for Clara to feel the press of his bones. It was a strange irreconcilable gesture, a literal push and pull that moved her closer and as he drew himself back at the same time.

_But that's us, isn't it? _Clara thought, chewing on her lip as she gazed up at Malcolm. _Tugging back and forth, back and forth. Together but hidden in plain open sight. That's us. That's always us. _When would it stop – or would they just get tired of it before that could happen?

"I know how you feel," Malcolm murmured, taking her by surprise. Clara continued walking by some compulsion, certainly not through her own willpower. Every bit of her attention was focused on Malcolm's voice as he continued speaking. "About the hiding, the lying – going out in public only when there's too much of a rush for anyone to fucking care. Trust me, I know how it feels. I feel it too. But you know why I do this, yeah?"

"It's for us," she said at once. Clara cleared her throat, hoping to sound less wooden and hollow the next time. "It's for you and me," she tried again. "So there can actually _be _a you and me. We're together only when we're alone, but to everyone else... we have to lie."

"Except to the CCTV cameras," he joked. But Clara's heart felt too much like a sudden, suffocating cloud to allow herself to laugh.

* * *

><p>Clara didn't talk again until they were closer to home. <em>Just a few more minutes and we'll be back, <em>she thought, brutally aware of both how close and yet how distant Malcolm felt at her side. Her hand was still in his coat pocket and he was still holding onto her waist, but both positions felt mechanical, processed and automatic.

Their house was almost within sight, but all its comforts felt lost as they continued on down the walk. Home was their sanctuary - both hers and Malcolm's, together. Clara had known this from the first day she set foot inside the door with the intent to live there. Home was where they could be each other's true haven, safe and bared and living without the burden of the world glaring in on them at all times. Home was the heart of everything, the heart of all their days together up to this point – and hopefully all the days to come. The last thing Clara wanted was to bring this awkward atmosphere back home. The house and the world she and Malcolm had crafted under that roof, in those rooms, between those walls, deserved to be as unburdened and honest as she could both possibly stand it to be.

_We can clear it all up when we get home. Maybe have a nice shout or a bit of the silent treatment, whatever you'd like, just – wait 'til you're back at the house, okay? _But Clara found it hard to keep silent, defying even her would-be words of encouragement. She was a jangle of bones and nerves and misspoken words, never saying the ones she wanted but rather the ones she wanted to let lie dead.

Clara knew what she had to do.

The wind picked up again and the grey sky overhead was growing darker, moodier, matching the shadows of Clara's thoughts. "Hey, Malcolm?" she asked, her voice breaking into the silence and the encroaching shadows. The noise of the crowds had long since died out along with the bells, the carols, and the overall festive atmosphere. Now the only sound was the passing hush of cars forcing themselves through the piles of snow.

"What is it?" he said, matching her steady tone.

"What I said earlier... About not being used to us going out together? That came out wrong," she said, her voice quiet, worried. "I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to sound like that."

"And how exactly was it supposed to sound?"

"Funnier. Less prickly and offensive. Charming?"

"I wasn't offended," he said. "As for pricked, well. You already made yourself an exception to my "_no weird fucking"_ rule when you first brought the cuffs and rope in the bedroom." Malcolm grinned as Clara squirmed at his side. "Knew it was only a matter of time before we worked our way up to _verbal _pegging and then – "

"Malcolm, _please_. Shut up," she laughed, shaking her head.

"See, there you go again," he continued, moving his hand off her waist to stroke her shoulder.

Malcolm's touch and even his embarrassing, if not astute, sense of humour meant more than Clara could say in that moment. Sometimes it even meant more than she could categorise into clear cut emotions, though relief was a certainly one of the more prominent feelings. At he wasn't pulling away now. Strange though it seemed, considering how madly head over heels they both were for each other, Clara worried that she would wake up to the day when the lying and the hiding became more than just a necessity of Malcolm's but a _need_, one that he would choose over her.

It was so easy to imagine a wedge driving down between her heart and his, a separation for which only she and her rambling, bitter mouth could take full credit and blame. The same way a tongue always seems to find the cut on the inside of your mouth, or the way your mind worries over a troubling, anxious thought, filling your heart with a violent buzzing that turns your chest into a hornet's nest, Clara created these worst case scenarios as if they were labours of true love. A worried mind always knew how best to wound itself. It was the curing that was the hardest part.

All Clara could do now was talk from the heart and push aside the clouds of fear that fogged her mind. All she could do now was talk from the heart and hope that would be enough.

"I don't mind that we don't go out all the time, Malcolm. You know that, right?" she said, not giving him room to answer. "Because when we do manage it's like... It's like I'm stealing time from someone else's life. Sometimes I half expect to get punished for being so happy, you know? It's almost like I'm cheating. Like I don't deserve it."

"I know," Malcolm said. "I know how that feels – I do."

"And I know why we stay shut up inside most of the time," she continued. "Just like I know why you _think _it's better that way." Clara gently stressed the one word that mattered most in that sentence.

Malcolm waited, saying nothing.

Clara used his silence as strength, knowing he was being attentive, not dismissive. "I want you to know that if anyone finds out about us, I could very easily handle what happens next. I'd put up with all of it for as long as I had to." She took a breath and closed her eyes. It was easier this way, always easier to rip herself apart as long as she didn't have to look, didn't have to _see_. "Because what we have together is more important to me than what anyone else has to say about it."

And there it was, her heart laid bare and bleeding, waiting for him to take. Clara was almost proud of herself.

Malcolm's silence continued, but her courage didn't. Opening her eyes, Clara turned to look up at him with a nervous twist of her head, holding her breath. His expression was unreadable, but the longer she studied him the more Malcolm looked thoughtful, as if he were searching for the words she deserved to hear. He just didn't know how to line up what was in his head with what lay on his tongue.

He didn't say anything until they were both back home. The bags with the gifts had been left in the front room, ready to wrap and send off the next morning. Clara was just about to dash up the stairs and argue with herself in the shower when Malcolm emerged from the living room, stopping her at the bottom stair.

"Look – I think it's better that we play it safe and lie low not because I have doubts about what you can put up with, or whether or not I think you can tolerate the deluge of shit they'd try to drown you in. Alright?" He took a breath, running his hand over his mouth. "It's because I know exactly what they'd do when... _if _word of us gets out. I don't want you to have to live through that. Not you. Anyone else – fucking _anyone else, _and it wouldn't even matter at all_. _I'd fucking serve them up on a platter, right? But not you. Not us."

Malcolm steadied his hand on the bannister, his lips tightening in a bitter twist before they became a smile. "And hey, look. If they have to fucking eat one of us alive it may as well be me, yeah?"

Clara looked Malcolm over carefully. His hair had been recently tousled and scratched, and parts of it were even sticking up in the back. There was a look in his eyes that she knew well, a fire similar to the anger that had taken over him when they passed the cat-calling boys. It was a pure and bold anger – but there was something else there, too. Something new burned in that hidden fire. But what?

Stunned into silence, Clara tried to place the cause of the blaze inside his eyes. She wondered too how badly it hurt him, and how best to get rid of it. It wasn't until Malcolm's eyes moved over her face, taking in every bit from the forehead lined with worry to the shocked, slightly parted mouth did she realise the source.

_It's me_. It was her burning him like this. She was the fire that burned and ached inside his heart.

Now speechless for another reason, Clara's eyes moved down to glance at Malcolm's hand. It was like a pale claw on the bannister, the bones and veins straining pitifully against the skin. She lifted her own hand and gently brushed her fingers across the back of his.

"I won't let them do that to you," she said with all the conviction she had, all the will and force and power of her breath. Clara knew that just as there was a fire alive inside of Malcolm, one that had caught, struck, and flared up from clawing at the flint of her heart, there was a similar flame alive inside her. One which only he could take the blame and credit for creating.

Clara searched his face just as his eyes had moved over hers, intently focused and full of love. "They can try all they want to find a way in and tear you apart, but I won't let them through. They can never lay a hand on you, Malcolm. Even when you have to be in the same room and waste time and breath and words on all those hacks, you're not really there. Not all of you, not the parts that matter. And if you're not all there, then they can't hurt you. They can't even touch you. Not even if they're chasing you down the street screaming bloody murder."

_Keep going. Keep telling him. _Clara closed her hand over Malcolm's, holding him tight. _Finish it. Go on. _"There's always going to be one shred of you they can't ruin, and that part of you is all mine, Malcolm Tucker. And I'll never let it go, not for anything. I promise."

Rather than waiting to hear his response, Clara left Malcolm with this thought, continuing up the stairs and to the comforts of the shower. But it wasn't long before Malcolm joined her, pulling her into his arms and pressing her so hard against him that Clara was sure she was going to slip, trip, and fall – but of course this didn't happen. Of course Malcolm held onto her, lifting herup so that the tips of her toes were all that kept her rooted to the sud-soaked ground. Of course Malcolm kept her safe, lending Clara his strength even as her love leached it out of him, leaving him weak and bared - but alive.

And as they moved from the bathroom to the bedroom, collapsing on the floor and clawing at each other with hands and nails and teeth, Clara felt loved by him, loved and safe, loved and valued – even if his kisses hurt enough to leave a bruise, even if his nails were scratching down her back and sides hard enough to demand her blood. She gave back as good as she got and more, and more, and more beyond that, until his groans became growls, became gasps and pleas.

This was the sort of love they had together, a love like a hunger, a love like an ache, a love that was flame and sanctuary. Their love lay at the heart of it all, a burning, pure tenderness that none outside could touch. Long may it reign.


	15. The Flipside

**Notes: **This chapter includes sexual content. So break out those Massive Attack, Lovage, or Lana Del Rey albums and let 'em roll.

Beyond that, this chapter takes place during Series 1, Episode 2. I couldn't quite figure out how to properly reference what was happening on screen in this very much off screen/between scenes sequence of events, nor could I really come up with a way that didn't feel forced, so I figured I'd just say it here so people can use it as a frame of reference. You are now being gently encouraged to go watch that episode. And the deleted scenes.

I did try to include as much of it as I could in a bit of dialogue and introspective bits, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded. I hope it's not forced?

* * *

><p><strong>The Flipside<strong>

Clara knew that when Malcolm was trying to downplay its significance at work, he referred to the side room attached to his office as "just a cupboard." Which is exactly what that little narrow room was, technically speaking. But to the both of them it was was something else entirely: an escape.

The counters, the sink, and occasional tray of slightly stale biscuits and wonky, tilting chairs that were often found within the cupboard felt more like false-front furniture and accidental accessories than items with any inherent worth. Nothing important, nothing that would be missed should they up and vanish one day. In Clara's way of thinking, the side room was the closest Number Ten came to having a junk drawer. Just a place for things that simply had no other place for the time being, but might be useful at a moment's notice if anyone bothered to give it the time of thought.

The fact that the cupboard was attached to Malcolm's office was both fitting, considering it was his job to sift through the political effluvia most others hoped to forget, and ever so slightly worrying if Clara let herself think about it long enough on a late night with dark thoughts to bully her into dreams. Sometimes these thoughts reached such a dire, dreadful point of agony that Clara couldn't help but _pray _that Malcolm didn't make any unkind comparisons between the cupboard's proximity to himself and who he was as an actual proper person. Because really, if she had to be embarrassingly honest with herself, Malcolm meant so much to her already and he himself _was_ so more than just what the government saw fit to use him for, he existed long before he ever set a foot through that door or walked those , and she knew it because she was just starting to know _him, _the Malcolm just barely alive beneath it all, and -

But no, she was being silly. Worse than silly, she was _worrying._ Worrying about a man almost twice her age and brutally capable of looking after himself.

_Relax. Reflect._ This level of dramatic introspection was reserved for only the most neurotic of hysterics and people who suffered from untreated Anxiety Disorders - such as herself.

Clara had been dating Malcolm for about two months by the time these late night fretting-fests started. It was a long enough time for her to get a good grasp of his personality beyond what he exhibited to the public view, and to understand how dangerous it was that he was already leaving such deep marks on her heart.

Figuratively speaking.

The differences between the two of them went deeper than the surface, creating an intricate weave-work of contrasting age and experience, but this only inspired more of an attraction than any sense of discord. Clara knew that Malcolm, unlike herself, was far from a sensitive person. He was a highly observant person, which was just as bad. Feeling and seeing were close-kin methods of suffering: the heart tore itself to ribbons for the former, while the latter agonized silently, privately, in the buried cell of its own mind. Couple that with high levels of intuition and Clara might as well say that the poor, uncommonly charming man who had started calling her _sweetheart _with effortless familiarity had a terminal disease in the form of his own personality traits.

The more attuned Clara became to Malcolm, the easier it was for her heart to get caught up in more than just her rapidly increasing admiration for the man. Its deeper, hidden melodies exerted an exhausting effort to match the rhythms and pace of his own which did Clara both a tremendous favour, as far as the relationship went, and punished her severely in the form of anxious insomnia. Thankfully it never showed its head when Malcolm spent the night - Clara had far more pleasant things to occupy her thoughts then, courtesy of a certain dizzying sexually attentive Scot.

Ever since Clara had walked out of Number Ten after the day her prank went miserably awry, Clara'd come to understand one thing about Malcolm's career: it was tantamount to fucking torture. It was private hell of an awful, isolating kind to be able to process more of the world than just the basic, simple surface we all wished was the only truth, to be able to look past and help craft the public masks we all love to show and pretend are really our own. It seemed an even more awful torment to have to root out the buried, rotten husks at work beneath these masks called politicians, and keep them in one's constant company.

The mind could really only handle so much of its own self-orchestrated strain before it turned into a slow kind of suicide. But there were ways of coping with this, ways to cope and treat without ever curing, bandaids for bullet wounds, placebos rather than panaceas. Tried and true and utterly predictable ways that, before Malcolm, had been only been satisfying for Clara when they were solo ventures after a nice glass of wine and a wilful imagination to help guide her hand. And though he was far from lacking in experience, it was clear from the fact that Malcolm was willing to find ways to secretly fuck Clara at work that he was likewise starved for gratification.

Which, if Clara had to guess, was why Malcolm pretended the cupboard wasn't all that special in the first place. Because it was. It really, truly was. And like all things that mattered to the heart there was also a consequence, a flipside. They were just as precious as they were vulnerable. _Pain was part and parcel of the things you loved – and doubly so for the people you loved._

_Might as well get used to saying that_, Clara told herself. _It only took a bloody breakdown to get the both of you to finally admit it._

* * *

><p>That Malcolm also referred to the side room as a "fucking pantry" in the same tone often used to shower Clara with blush-inducing compliments suggested it really did, oddly enough, mean quite a lot to him. That he was possessive of that hidden space and the time they shared in it was undeniable, and strangely thrilling. They were only just starting to make use of it – could it really mean so much after so short a time?<p>

The short answer was yes.

Here's the longer answer.

* * *

><p>If Clara were a more sensitive sort of person, she might take some slight offence to how often she and Malcolm met up inside the very same cupboard since her first day in his office. Almost as if he were making some kind of subtle comparison between the contents of the cupboard and its occasionally sentient occupants - but that wouldn't be right for her to do, nor would it be an accurate grasp of basic reality.<p>

All Clara had to do to keep these miserable thoughts at bay was remind herself of the way Malcolm looked at her the instant the door closed: a slow, tender ravishing, as if he were peeling back the layers of her casual indifference, then pulling back her buried distress, then unlacing the nervousness she hid beneath _that_ until he found the heart of her. Malcolm looked at Clara as if she were air and he was the drowning man struggling for the surface, eager to break free to the light and open his lips to let in that desperate, fortifying gasp. He looked at her like he was in love.

_Try to return the favour a few times, yeah? Use those Bambi eyes for some sort of good, Oswald._

It might have made Clara uncomfortable to know the man she had been dating only for a few weeks' was already starting to house a blatant, unspoken need for her - if she didn't already feel that way about him. But even if Clara weren't allowing herself to finally admit that she was actually, properly, sincerely falling fast for this man, there was a real, pure charge in knowing just how deeply inside his heart she already lay.

Malcolm wasn't a man prone to flourishing, poetic sentiments. Conversations with him were to the point, honest, and only seldom sweet enough to make her heart clench and her teeth ache. But that was fine. That's all Clara wanted from any relationship: a clear, simple truth. The kind Amy could give and Rory could deliver with tender, supportive sweetness. The kind John struggled to deliver.

_Don't think about John here. Not now._

And even if Malcolm couldn't always _say _such sincere, honest things, all it took was one look at his face to know exactly how Malcolm felt. _He needs you like he breathes you, Clara._

God, that face. Clara wondered how it left such an impression on her so quickly – but then again, they didn't call certain faces striking for nothing. There was something both haunted and handsome about Malcolm's face once she looked past the occasional hollows beneath his eyes and the pallor that showed itself despite his noble efforts to control it. Ever since she had first met at Tesco, Clara had been struck at the thought that Malcolm's was a lively, active face, a whirlwind of thought portrayed with the slightest turns of expression. Scowls followed fast behind curious, quick glances, and smiles slipped off into crooked, wicked smirks that could set her heart racing if she weren't careful.

But why be careful? Why bother? Let herself be in love. Let go.

Clara knew that to a less smitten gaze that some of Malcolm's features might work against him. His appearance was certainly more striking than it was conventionally dashing. There was the long nose – which he often brushed against her neck and behind her ear as preludes to the kisses he lavished over her skin. Not to mention the lean face that could so easily appear far too thin, almost frightfully skeletal if stress and not enough rest sank their teeth in to devour him. He was getting better at that now, with the home-cooked meals courtesy of his own kitchen. Clara knew that Malcolm's grins could be as alarming as his temper, and only those absolutely overzealous about dentistry would care much about all the fillings he had in his back teeth. And yet every thing that might render him plain or even a little ugly to another set of eyes made him all the more beloved in hers. He was genuine, human, and raw, like a nerve exposed to a scalpel – and he was _hers_.

And really, if all that mattered to Clara was some plucked and trimmed and carefully sculpted boyfriend, she would've have attached a dildo to a cardboard cut out with Godfrey Gao's face pasted on ages ago.

"And who the fuck would that strapping young lad be? Someone at her office?" Malcolm had asked when Clara told him the joke, peering down at her sideways as she sank lower against him on the living room couch.

Under the influence of Malcolm's stare and the wine bottle Clara had almost polished off by herself, she did her best to seem casual and unaffected, matching his own enviable ease. Clara shrugged, quietly relieved that Malcolm had take the joke well enough to laugh, even if he was still frowning down at her. "He's no one you need to worry about," she said. "It's just a for instance. Just a name."

_Just a name. Nothing special. Like cupboard, like pantry. Like boyfriend, like girlfriend – like the Director of goddamn Communications for the Prime Minister._

_That's it. Now you're drunk._

This conversation took place a week after Clara's disastrous visit to Number Ten, which had been redeemed only by the small bit of sanctuary Malcolm had made for her in that little side room cupboard. Clara told herself that she was going to get the hell over the fact that she was being charmed, courted, and regularly fucked by one of the most influential men in the country, that she should bury whatever fears still lingered behind so far down and deep that they would probably manifest as an ulcer when she was in her fifties. But despite this conviction, a certain amount of liquor and evasive conversational tactics were still required to help her through the dicier moments.

It helped that Malcolm was spending more time with Clara now that she had put in her appearance at the office, as if her trespassing had pulled down some hidden barrier between the two. Malcolm could be a curious little ray of sunshine for Clara when he set his mind to it, and her mini-breakdown had brought out a tenderness that Clara hadn't expected, given how stern and forbidding he always looked whenever he left for work in the morning.

Clara focused on this fact, focused on his kindness, his effortless jokes, the lazy way he would draw her into his arms, down onto his lap, and sift his fingers through her hair. It was as if tending to her were more a matter of instinct instead of effort.

For his part in helping Clara through the recovery, Malcolm put on his most charming face, told his worst – and subsequently best – jokes, and held Clara close enough to his body that it seemed as if a seam were sewn between her skin and his, a dark, thin thread that ever-feared it would snap. If Clara felt mortified for having taken a blind stroll along Downing Street, Malcolm's response was as comically contrasting as it was sincere: He was actually relieved. His secret was out and he didn't have to do much of the dirty work as far as confessing went – he'd gotten off a bit easy, all things considered. Clara might reach that relieved point herself some day, once she got over the fact that the man she was dating turned back Google results that _weren't _criminal records.

That night, the night Gao had been outed as one of the faces in her fantasy Rolodex, Clara had been complaining half-heartedly to Malcolm about the increasing pressure the band of her skirts were exerting onto her stomach. Most of the blame for this change lay fully with all the home-cooking he did to impress her, as well as certain contraceptive methods.

"Not that I'm upset about it," Clara had put in quickly, cutting herself off. "But I am feeling a bit. You know. Stuffed." Clara poked her stomach, frowning at the soft squish beneath her coral blue shirt. "It's quickly on its way to being a tummy."

To Malcolm's credit, he had only rolled his eyes half-way through her likewise incomplete grievances, not because he didn't care about what Clara was saying but that he didn't care about their cause. Once Clara caught him at it and gave him her best imitation of his own bollocking-face glare, Malcolm had assured her easily, with an almost waspish kind of impassivity, that it didn't matter how she changed or even how she looked. It never mattered – not to the people who mattered, anyway.

"There's more than just your skin and tits and vag of honour and your wee plump gut, yes? And you still carry around a face that's just a bit nicer than this grim fucking mug."

"... Thank you?" Clara hadn't expected this out of Malcolm. She didn't think he gave much thought to his appearance apart from the basics of self-care and maintenance, certainly not enough to cast some kind of negative judgement on it.

That was around the time Godfrey Gao came into the conversation. Her joke about the dildo-equipped cut out had been an attempt to clear the cloud off Malcolm's expression, which it succeeded in doing – for a time. But there was an undeniable shadow in his gaze as Clara dropped Gao's name, one that didn't clear off with his light, sardonic laugh. It wasn't quite jealousy, this shadow, and it was certainly nowhere near sincere offence. It seemed more like a kind of sharp, sudden awareness, as if Malcolm realised in that moment that Clara did not spring fully formed from the Gorbals to complete his life and sate all his appetites, that Clara contained a whole secret store of knowledge that he was only just starting to understand and, Clara hoped, appreciate.

Clara was a woman in possession of both her own life and a healthy amount of physical appetites, even if the former did feel hopelessly out of her control sometimes. In short, that's the moment Malcolm realised what they had together had went deeper and meant so much more than just a rebound relationship. Funny that this should come after the love confession. Funnier still that Malcolm would be the one to admit this to Clara in a brutal moment of sincerity - without ever coming out to say it directly.

But that was still to come.

* * *

><p>The ultimate physical appeal Malcolm possessed lay in his eyes – not for their colour, which always seemed to shift between the spectrum of greys to blues to pale, weathered green depending on the light, but for their power.<p>

Clara wondered just how many people really looked into Malcolm's eyes, really, truly looked and then felt the shadowed presence at work behind the gaze. His assistant, Sam Cassidy, was pretty high on a rather short list of possibilities – but hers was just about the only name Clara had so far.

What little Clara knew about Sam, and what very few conversations that Clara had overheard during her brief, now scheduled visits to Malcolm's office, suggested that he and Sam were as friendly as professional sorts could be to one another. Their polite, cordial chatter and professional chemistry reminded Clara of a surgeon and an accompanying nurse: prompt, efficient, and just a little instinctive. Clara was grateful that Malcolm had someone like that in his life, particularly at his work, where actual genuine support seemed so wanting.

Or maybe Malcolm was just too tenacious, too eager for control, with the end result being he shouldered too much and suffered more than he succeeded.

_Might know a thing or two about that myself. _Clara wasn't quite sure which seemed more plausible yet. It could very well be a mixture of both.

Clara also didn't know how to thank Sam for her efforts. _"Congratulations on not being a screw up and making my boyfriend's shitty job just a little more tolerable," _was the best she could come up with. But Clara knew it was rubbish. And besides, it probably wasn't her place to say a thing. Sam belonged to a world Clara was not meant to occupy, nor did she _want _to occupy any part of it.

Which is why Clara were both confused and surprised when Malcolm started inviting her down to his office during lunch breaks and weekends. A week never ended for Malcolm, but instead stretched onward into a grim infinity of media spin. And yet here he was, trying to invite her into that circuit.

"That doesn't mean we can't do a fucking lunch, yeah? Or a dinner?" he said after listening to her explanation.

"A dinner. At your office."

"Well if you're feeling adventurous I could always fix up that fucking pantry, too."

"How thoughtful, Malcolm. But don't you worry about me. Wouldn't want to be a fuss." Clara had meant this as a joke. It was an awkward, half-mumbled bit of humour, done mostly to shift the topic clear and wide from the glaring fact that he wanted Clara to be there with him.

Which is probably why Malcolm did exactly as Clara teased and played it off as an honest mistake about a perceived, sincere request. He didn't want the shift to happen at all – he wanted it to be the focus. Just as long as neither one of them actually said anything about it.

But that all changed on the first late night visit Clara made to Malcolm's office. That was a night for confessions and surprises from the both of them, with that damned cupboard as ground zero.

* * *

><p>"Have you ever seen someone look so cross that it makes their skin pull back so far and so hard that they're all skull and pointed eyebrows?" Clara asked, doffing her coat and scarf on the nearest chair and perching on the edge of the armrest. "Because that's what you look like to me right now. It's not a very nice welcome."<p>

Malcolm said nothing to this. After he let Clara into his office, he had swept imperiously back towards his desk with swift, long strides and had a seat. There he sat for a long awkward arch of seconds, not moving, not looking at Clara at all, not even after she had spoken.

Something was bothering him. Something always was, sure, but this was something new. He was keeping his anger inside. _That's new._

Clara studied Malcolm quickly from where she sat, folding her hands on her lap, denting her skirt down to press against her thighs. Malcolm sat half-slumped in his chair, which was different from the other Clara had seen. No doubt this one moved reliably in all its swivelling glory. His suit coat was off and slung over the back of the chair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled in tight folds up past his elbows, freeing his arms. The muscles beneath his skin were strained, garrote-wire tense, and the hand that wasn't pressed against his face was lying in a tight fist on the desk. Knuckles strained, pale blue veins coiling under the skin. He looked like he wanted to hit something. He looked like something had hit _him._

"So why bring me down here in the middle of the night all secret-like? Do you want me to help get rid of a body or something?" Clara tilted her head slowly to the side as she smiled. _Laugh. Go on and laugh, Malcolm._ "Because I read this book once, yeah? It's about abused housewives who take up a corpse-disposal service in Tokyo. They just chuck out the limbs and parts around the city with the morning's trash. Genius idea, I think."

Malcolm kept his hand pressed to his mouth, his eyes fixed squarely on the satsuma peels that decorated the desk in favour of files, folders, and notes. At this last bit, about disposing bodies out with the bins, separating them in strategic locations, his eyes darted up at last. Pinning Clara with his gaze, his furious expression cleared at once, becoming a sort of bemused, blank slate. "You were too ready with that suggestion," he said, his voice low. Eventually he smiled.

"I can't help it, it was a very striking story. One of my favourites." Clara indulged in the sight of his smile, that almost bashful grin he could show without letting out more than a flash of his teeth. It made his nose seem sharper, but she had never seen a more beautiful smile. It was honest, it was true. It was him. "So what's happened? Who's messed up this time?"

"Hewitt," he said at once. The name slipped from his mouth without much thought, but it had more of an impact on Malcolm than it did on Clara. His eyes snapped shut, his head twisted, his mouth pulling up at the corner as he hissed, "No, not Hewitt. You don't fucking know him, I didn't say that name."

_He doesn't really think he's going to get away with that, does he? _"Except that you did say it. You said it and I heard it and I don't have to know him for him to be able to make you angry," Clara said, straightening her back. The little golden charm on her necklace flashed in the light just in the bottom of her gaze. It drew her attention as her chest pushed out with the force of a long, deep breath. Clara flexed her fingers in the little cradle they'd made on her lap. "Although if I _did _know him, I could always gently persuade him not to make you this cross again."

Malcolm's gaze flickered from her shoulders to her hands and made a quick, casual sweep of her legs. They were crossed. Clara could feel one of her heels slipping off the back of her foot; it dangled perilously close to the floor, in danger of a crash.

"Gently?" he asked, his expression a perfect stamp of disbelief.

"Very gently," Clara said, flexing her foot so her shoe snapped back into place. "With a pillowcase full of satsumas swung round his head."

"You were also too ready with that," Malcolm said, pointing at Clara with the hand that had once been locked in a bent little cage of long fingers and stone-rigid fist against his face. He could have been admonishing her, but his expression didn't suggest it. It was hard to tell just _what _Malcolm's expression was in that moment – something was still burning him, something related to this Hewitt person, whoever he was. But the sight of Clara on the arm of the chair, smiling and curious and cracking easy jokes about vicious murders, took the sting out of whatever was biting him.

Good. That's what Clara wanted. That's also what she assumed he called her over for – that and the pleasure of her company.

_But for how long?_

Malcolm watched with a slow growing, indulgent smile as her heel slipped on and off in a slow, steady bend. It was an idle, impulsive act on her part, one Clara knew called attention not to the black platform pump that Clara had dug out of her closet to help mediate the startling difference in hers and Malcolm's heights, but to the bit of skin that flashed from _inside _the heel. It was a trick Clara had learned with a previous boyfriend years ago: get a man to think about her body by doing nothing more than a few casual gestures that were harmless in themselves, but suggestive to a keen pair of eyes.

If Clara thought it was a thrill being so high in Malcolm's regard after only a short length of time – and she did, make no mistake about that – then this little trick of commanding his attention was just as invigorating. And it required so little effort on her part. How nice. More importantly than providing a nice visual distraction for Malcolm, this fidgeting let Clara alleviate some of the anxiety that was building up in a bramble knot inside her stomach.

_Both of us win here. What a treat._

"I thought you were asleep when I called," he said.

"I was. That was the first sentence out of my mouth when I answered the phone: _Malcolm, I'm sleeping, what do you want?_"

He smiled, then pointed at her clothes, flicking his pointer finger up and down. "Then why put all this on?"

"It's a trial run for the new outfit," Clara said, flattening her hands against her chest and straightening out the folds that had settled into the cardigan. She brushed away stray bits of lint with a snap of her fingers. "I was going to wear it tomorrow, so I figured I'd give it a spin tonight. See how it fits, you know. Do you like it?"

"It's nice," he said at once, his mouth moving like a sharply shutting trap. "It... fits," he added, and there was a curious clip in his tone as he said it, followed by another quick dip of his gaze down to her legs again.

And that's when the penny dropped for Clara. It helped that Malcolm's gaze had finally settled on her own again, bringing with it the full force of whatever was inspiring that lazy smile.

Her heel snapped back up against her foot. "So who's Hewitt?" Clara asked, knowing full well the question would change the mood considerably.

And it did. There went the smile.

"A hack whose fucking brains are as thick as cum-custard," he snapped at once. Malcolm's hands tightened on the edge of the arm-rests, a convulsive, furious seizure that passed only after he saw Clara staring at his hands. "You'd need something less blunt than a sack full of satsumas, I think. If you want to put in more than a dent into his considerably large, bulbous head. Why not a shiv? Just – " he raised his hand, made a fist, and knocked it against the back of his head, popping his lips until they made a comical _thunk_. " – right in the fucking skull."

There were two main points to process in that statement. The first was the overt animosity for whoever this Hewitt man was, though Clara's instincts told her he was clearly connected to the press. Malcolm didn't throw the word _hack _around lightly. It was reserved for a very specific sort of press-person, and Clara was only just starting to discover the type. Vicious and vain and shameless sour-faced bastards and bitches, as clever as they were cunning, but not nearly enough to justify their over-swollen, tumescent pride.

And yet... there was another layer to Malcolm's anger that Clara recognised before she could put it into words. It was a kind of seething bitterness that clearly said whoever this Hewitt man was, he'd offended Malcolm on a level that went beyond his already considerably easily offended professional sensibilities.

_It was ugly and personal, _Clara thought, forcing a quick smile as Malcolm waited for her reaction to his shiv joke. _Ugly, personal, and very recent – so it probably involves an ex._

_Oh._ Clara slumped for just a beat where she sat, this thought sinking in. _Quite personal, then. That would explain why he's so prickly. _Malcolm had made mention of the last woman he was with in passing, only just once or twice. All Clara had gathered was that it had ended about three months before she crashed into his life over a bottle of milk, and that Malcolm would much rather deep-throat a chainsaw than make the ex a topic of conversation again.

"_They're fucking welcome to each other – though of course, I can easily fucking say that now that he's already helped his fucking self, yeah?"_

Clara hadn't known who the _he _in that statement was until tonight, but she considered herself to be a rather sharp girl. Context clues had let her fill in those blanks that Malcolm was carefully omitting with all the blunt force trauma of a panicked amputation. _He _and the ex had gotten together while _she _was still with Malcolm. That was the long and short of it.

Clara's heart gave a sharp pang of sympathy as she looked at Malcolm anew. It would have been crass and far too dismissive to simply call him _jilted – _but it was, according to the OED, the best word. Deceived and dropped suddenly and carelessly by a lover, left to seethe and stew in the bitter dregs of what one could scrape together of their heart_._

_Oh god, that doesn't make me the rebound does it?_ she thought, taken back by this rude thought._ Bloody well hope not. _

The second point to take in from Malcolm's statement was the fact that the instant he snarled _cum-custard, _a blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. Clara felt like a hideously obvious beacon, with the emphasis on hideous since this was certainly not the time to get all hot under the collar at her boyfriend's penchant for working sexual imagery into almost any conversation. _He's angry from work and angry because of some buried bit of hurt, and you're sitting here squirming. Get some perspective, please._

Clara waited for Malcolm to say something about her blush – surely it was visible to him, even in the low lighting of the office and the distance of half the office being between them. But all she had to endure was a heavy, knowing look, a quick smirk, and then a little huff of warm, deep laughter. Clara squirmed even more on the arm of the chair, clearing her throat.

"I almost forgot," he muttered, shaking his head. "That's your fucking sweet spot, isn't it?"

Clara frowned. "No, you didn't forget about it at all. I told you that in the strictest confidence – after you let slip something about caramel body paint."

"It was chocolate," Malcolm corrected at once, and then immediately ran his fingers across his mouth, trying to wipe the words again. His hand didn't shake but there was a slight, subtle wavering in his eyes and voice that let Clara know he wasn't the only one squirming in the room. He just did it on the inside. "And fine, look, I didn't forget it. But you'd prefer it if I did, yes?"

"Again, no," Clara said. "I'd _prefer_ it if you gave me a little warning before you brought semen into the conversation, that's all." She grinned at the way Malcolm was glaring at her, a sharp, knowing look that went nicely with his ragged laugh. "You're considerate enough to do that at all other times, Malcolm. Why not here?"

Malcolm's laugh made her skin tingle. Clara suddenly felt as if a pair of large, warm hands were trailing across her stomach, moving slowly around her lower back, and then down to stroke the back of her thighs. Was it the laughter that brought this on? Or his look? No, it was just a memory of the last time Malcolm had touched Clara like that. A day ago. Just a pitiful batch of simple little hours.

Sitting there, lavishing every second Malcolm's eyes lingered on her, Clara decided that a day ago was far too long. And judging by the way Malcolm was looking at her, Clara wasn't the only one with this thought.

"Sweetheart, what the fuck am I going to do with you?" he asked. The light in his eyes returned, flashing with a playful, luscious glimmer Clara knew well.

"I ask myself that very same question almost every day, Malcolm," she said, not quite ready to acquiesce to what her shaking hands, tensed thighs, and squirming tummy were all but leaping to do. Your mind was still in charge, for at least a little while longer now. And Clara was still stung by that one, nagging word.

_Rebound._

_Do people actually say, "I love you" to a rebound? _Maybe, on accident.

_Do they look at a rebound the way he's got me in his sights now? _Of course, don't be daft.

Clara slumped again in her seat, trying to keep her face from falling. Malcolm didn't have to know how she felt. Not yet. Not until she had won the argument inside her head.

_Do they need a rebound the way he needs me? Desperately, terribly, terrifyingly close to an addiction but without any of the poison?_

_Do they treat a rebound like an actual person, like they matter – like they have value and worth and a heart that needs caring? You know, the way Malcolm makes me feel?_

Clara didn't answer this. Not because she didn't have an answer, but because she already knew it.

"What's the matter?" Malcolm asked, his voice shifting out of its heated, heavy tone to take on a note of concern.

Clara shook her head. "Nothing," she said, smiling. And she meant it.

Clara pushed herself to her feet and crossed the space between her and Malcolm, trying not to wobble in her heels. "I just drifted off a little bit. You know me. Prone to zone," she lied, waving her hand round her head as she came round the desk, indicating the airy, silly nature of the thoughts inside.

Malcolm turned the chair at her approach, making it easier for Clara to do exactly as she intended: drop down sideways into his lap. Clara hooked her legs over the arm of his chair, giving Malcolm enough room to pull back his arm before she trapped it under her knees. That he purposefully left his arm there in order to flip it over and drag his hand under her legs, his fingers tickling that little bend of skin that he had only recently learned was sensitive enough to make Clara shiver, was a very welcome bit of cheekiness indeed.

"Do you really ask yourself that?" he asked, one hand rising up to stroke his fingers his across her wrist.

Clara looped her arms around Malcolm's neck and gave that pensive mouth a little kiss. "I absolutely do," she said at once, leaning back so she could gaze down her nose at Malcolm. His other hand slipped down her back, warming her through the layers of clothing until Clara felt as if he were caressing her bare skin. "I usually do it around the time I also wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life, which is an existential cataclysm that occurs routinely before I wonder what I'm going to eat for dinner." Clara shrugged as she laid all this out, careful, casual, like it meant nothing.

Kicking her feet slowly back and forth so that both of her black pumps were just barely danging off her toes, Clara let Malcolm enjoy their brief silence. It was easier to grasp Malcolm's reaction to her little shoe trick now that she had her bum in his lap and her breasts pressed against his chest. His breath was silent but sharp, drawing in his chest and making his body clench down through his stomach and into his legs.

"Well it's nice to know you keep your mind active, Clara," Malcolm said. Meaningless words, filler phrases, just something to fill the silence that was growing ever tighter. The invisible thread stitched between them was winding down slowly like a reel being drawn in, dragging them closer together. "Stops you from going soft like – like..." he trailed off, and Clara knew at once it was a ruse.

Malcolm never stammered over his words. He never fumbled for them, never groped for a way to make a thought into a harsh, honest sound. He was merely playing pretend. But he was doing a damn good job of it. His eyebrows contracted as his thin mouth bent sickle-like into a frown. "What was it I said to you just now? It made you blush."

Clara resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, deciding it wasn't worth the effort. She shook her head instead. "You know what you said, Malcolm. Just like I know you're only trying to get me to say it."

Malcolm's frown lifted as he gave Clara a thoughtful looking over. "Do you?" he asked, his voice rough. Malcolm's eyes found the golden charm around her neck, his gaze as heavy and forceful as if his hand were on her neck. In a second it was, his fingers curling around the nape of her neck in a languid caress.

"I do," Clara said, her voice strained. She squirmed a little in his lap to give herself breathing room – and to make Malcolm lose his breath.

But he found it quicker than she expected. "So say it," he told her. _Told _her, not asked. "Please," he added as he leaned forward, ducking his head down to kiss the side of her throat.

Clara closed her eyes and savoured the heat of his breath and lips. "You can add all the – _pleases_ – ", she gasped as he nipped her neck, quickly covering the newly bitten skin with a warm, lingering kiss, "– that you... that you like. You're not going to – to tease me," she finished, her voice finding stronger ground towards the end of the sentence.

"Am I teasing you?" he asked, moving his lips around the front of her neck, under her chin, and to a point just below her ear. "Is that what you think this is?"

Malcolm swept her hair back, baring more skin and finding more places to kiss. Clara saw absolutely no reason to stop him, even though she was starting to feel a familiar creeping knot of dread up her back. It was like cold water thrown over her flushed, heated skin.

_This is happening in Number Ten. I'm grinding in my boyfriend's lap as he sucks on my neck – in Number fucking Ten._

_Oh god, phrasing. Why._

_Shut up. Malcolm said something to you, so you should probably answer back. And fast. _"I think this is all a ridiculous dream that I've invented due to a combination of little sleep, high stress, too much caffeine – and the recent traumatising discovery that the man I'm just a tiny bit in love with is one of the most powerful men in government," Clara said, all in one breath.

_You _are _allowed to breathe in between her sentences, _she reminded herself.

"Nice to know you've revised your fantasies," Malcolm said. "Last one was what – a cardboard cut-out with a fucking press-on dildo?"

"Shut up," Clara hissed, twisting away from his mouth so that his lips were grazing her hair instead. _There. Let him nibble on that._

Laughing against her throat as if he'd somehow heard her thought, Malcolm moved his hand up into Clara's hair. Winding the ends around his fingers, he closed her hair inside his fist and lifted it gently, pressing his hand to the back of her head so that her neck was clear again.

_Oh, that works too._

"That was nothing," he said. Malcolm's lips were slow to move away from her neck, but he seemed determined not to kiss her mouth. At least, not yet. Understandable, given the fact that they were currently having a conversation. "That was fucking tame. Docile. And you're the one who said it first."

"Just like you're the one who brought up cum-custard first," Clara said.

Malcolm froze for a short second, then he began to shake with silent laughter.

Clara opened her eyes and frowned as he let go of her hair. Malcolm straightened her dark brown hair in a slow fan down her shoulders, undoing any of the tangles his tight grip had worked into the strands. "What's that laugh for?" she asked, just as his chuckle tapered off to become a smile.

"Got you to say it."

Clara turned her head away before Malcolm could stop her next batch of words with a kiss. This time his lips did pass over her hair. She heard him tut with frustration. "No you didn't. I said it of my own free will."

"Course you did, sweetheart."

"Just like I'm leaving _now _of my own free will," Clara said, and she was back on her feet and off of his lap before he could even blink.

Malcolm stood up at once. He towered over Clara almost by a whole foot; even in her heels she could fit her head right under Malcolm's chin, giving him ample room to look down and kiss the crown of her head. And yet despite his size Clara had never felt cornered, never shrank back on some nervous instinct she didn't want to have to describe should Malcolm ever ask about it.

Despite his temper, his rages, his foul, bitter words and his furious, storm-dark expressions, Malcolm never scared Clara. Even better, Clara was never afraid of him the way some men always earned her fear. Strangers on the street or sitting across from her on the train. Men going about their day as neat as they please, making sure Clara felt a cold stab of fear in hers. There was so much time of her day allotted to bucking up the courage to do an act no more challenging than existing in a public space. And they all looked like such gentlemen, too. Well-dressed, neatly styled, some of them even typically handsome.

How funny that Malcolm, with all his prominent features, crudely expressive face and even more crude verbal expressions, should make Clara feel the safest. _A flipside, indeed._

Malcolm didn't lay a hand on Clara though she stood so close that each breath she took made it so that her chest brushed against him. His eyes were steady, focusing on Clara's face as she gave him a bright, brave smile. Malcolm didn't have to touch her to sweep Clara off her feet. Not when she already felt as if she were sinking into a gaze so heavy, so lidded, so warm it knocked the world out from under her.

"There's no need for that, is there? At least stay for the rest of the hour, yeah?" he said, his tone polite. Dare she even say professional? If it weren't for the look he was lavishing her with right now, Clara could almost think they hadn't just spent the past five minutes working each other up into a fine frenzy.

Clara looked Malcolm over with a careful gaze, her smile pressing down into a thin little point until it form a smirk instead. "What's the word?" she asked.

"What word?"

"The magic word," Clara said. "The nice one. The one I want to hear."

Malcolm didn't even hesitate – he did, however, clench his hands into fists, sit back down in his chair, and lean his head back to stare up at Clara. He might have been begging, considering the look he gave Clara then – but Malcolm was not a man to beg. Never.

"Please." The word was better than any kiss, and he said it with a rush of warmth and tenderness that it made _Clara _want to drop down on her knees and give thanks. "Please stay. Sit."

Clara took her seat on his lap again – and then she paused, scowling. "Were you giving me dog commands just now?"

Malcolm's hands slid up her back, pulling her closer to him. "Not intentionally, no," he said, smiling so Clara know he meant it.

But she wasn't quite convinced. "I should hope not. That's not how we work, you know. You and me, I mean."

Malcolm's hands came to a stop on her hips. "Clara, it's been a long fucking day full of lots of shouting with an even longer evening with more of the same," he said. "Had a bit too many morons and tossers to talk to today, so my temper might – _might _just be bleeding over here. … I'm sorry." Malcolm gave her cheek a chaste kiss, but the way he was pushing himself up and against the back of her thighs was most certainly not.

"Thank you," Clara said, more to the apology than to the grinding he was finally reciprocating. "I... I appreciate that."

"So why are you standing again?"

Clara waited until Malcolm's expression shifted from a blank slate to a slow growing curiosity before she sat down again, straddling him this time. With her hands on his shoulders, her chin raised up, and her eyes sparkling with the bit of mischief that was soon devouring anything like fear, Clara gave the end of her feet casual little flicks. Her black pumps dropped to the floor in hard, sharp thuds just as Malcolm's hands grabbed her hips once again, locking Clara in place with a strong, tight grip.

"Oh, you know," she said, adopting his careless, casual tone from earlier, when he was pretending to forget. "Just trying to keep awake, seeing as it's so late. I don't want to zone out again."

Clara continued to act as if she was not at all aware of the hard, eager look Malcolm was giving her just then, though it was harder to do now that she wasn't talking. Her fear was nowhere to be felt, even if the mischief had tapered off a bit – all Clara could think of was Malcolm's body beneath hers, the way just a little bit of pressure or an ease of weight could draw out the slightest reactions from him.

It was a bit trickier to maintain her sham ignorance when Clara began to rock ever so gently in his lap, causing Malcolm to grit his teeth and lean his head back against the chair once again. But she had to do it – never mind that she couldn't easily find a reason why apart from the hilariously cavalier _Why not? _excuse_. _She would come up with a reason later.

Clara held her breath, counted back from four inside her head, and spoke again. She made sure to keep her voice low, all the better to hear Malcolm's muffled groans. "And considering how you seem strangely reluctant to pull the trigger on the _real_ reason for dragging me in here at this ungodly hour, I figured you needed a bit of help."

"Help?" he echoed, his voice a rasp.

Clara grinned. "A tease, then. Call it what you like. You're still reluctant, Mr. Tucker."

"Like fuck am I – " he hissed, then he broke off into a soundless gasp as Clara reached down between his legs to grab his erection through his trousers.

Clara watched, more than a little pleased with herself, as Malcolm's eyes slid shut and all the tension seemed to drain from his face at once. His shoulders fell slack as he focused every bit of thought onto the steady, eager movements of her hand. Every breath hitched and released at the motions of her fingers; she was tracing forceful little circles that she made sure were kept clear of the sharp, metal bite of his zipper. No point hurting the man here. Not when he was making such lovely noises right against her ear.

Leaning in close so that her breasts brushed against his chest, Clara pressed her lips to his ear so that every word she spoke made them brush against his skin in a soft, whispering kiss. He groaned again, a little louder this time, but there was no way he wouldn't be able to hear her. "Alright. You aren't reluctant. Hardly. You do lack initiative, though. How's that?"

"_Fucking_ – bollocks," he moaned. His eyes flew open when her fingers stopped moving. Clara waited, wondering if he'd ask her to start up again. Instead he said, "That's a highly refuckingfutable statement, yeah?"

Clara knew Malcolm was losing his composure if he started inserting fucks into the middle of a perfectly harmless word. With one hand sitting steady on his shoulder, Clara slowly moved the other one up his stomach and over his chest, fingers flat, until Clara were running the tip of her finger across his bottom lip.

"Prove it," Clara said, pushing her face closer until Clara could see the small, faint versions of herself reflected in his eyes. "Refute it."

Clara pressed herself as close to Malcolm as her clothes and the physical limitations of two people on one chair would allow. It was absolutely indecent, the way she was grinding down against his lap. The heat between her legs made the muscles in her thighs contract with more than just the physical labour required for a dry fuck, but Clara saw no reason to care about propriety just then. Why should it matter? Why should she care? Clara was pretty sure that quite a few people would object to exactly what she and Malcolm were doing –_ or about to do, if he keeps moaning like that_ – and that the Prime Minister would be absolutely ranked among them. Not to mention her parents and a fair few vicars scattered between her lapsed religious childhood and her current, indecent state.

But Clara didn't care. She didn't. Truly.

They weren't here. Well, maybe the PM was somewhere, but as long as Clara was with Malcolm the entire world simply didn't matter – it dropped away into a careless, forgotten abyss, swallowed up in the darkness that could no longer torment or hound her the way it did when she tried to sleep alone. That wasn't happening much anymore. Even on nights when she and Malcolm weren't expecting each other's company, Clara felt certain that there was a part of him still there with her, tucked safe and buried deep against her heart. Just as Clara was certain there was a corresponding sanctuary for her in the very same spot of him.

Clara couldn't deny this bond, nor would she let that old awful friend Dread try to convince her otherwise. It had no place here, not with Malcolm holding on tightly to her hips, his fingers digging into her sides hard enough for Clara to be well aware of both the strength of his hands and how they were ever so slightly trembling. It was his usual response to anticipation, one Clara knew would soon settle into a sturdy touch, a silver tongue, and a dizzying blend of tenderness and raw, aching desire.

_I'm better than any fucking rebound – I'm better, and I mean so much more. _Clara was going to prove it to Malcolm that night.

Just as Clara ran her fingers up through Malcolm's hair and pressed her lips to the side of his neck, giving his strained, tense throat a long lick, something shifted in atmosphere of the room. The tension evaporated, becoming instead the sort of patient focus that Clara knew to associate with that terrifying stretch of time where foreplay became the actual, proper game. Clara wasn't afraid in the slightest that Malcolm would judge or think less of her for her desires, nor the ease in which Clara revealed them to him. Clara wasn't shameless – she was merely safe, accepted, and in some ways easily surpassed by Malcolm's ability to let Clara know exactly what he craved.

More often than not it seemed as if Malcolm used her hushed, eager words and all the lewd images they constructed as inspiration to share his own. Tit for tat, in a sense. Giving back as much as he got. Very rarely did Clara fail to blush at what he growled in her ear – and she was doing it now, in fact, blushing _and_ gasping – but as his hands were also roaming over her body, one under her shirt, one moving up her skirt, with two long fingers slipping under the band of her knickers to tease and test the heat between our legs, Clara found it hard to form any coherent response at all save for a moan. But Malcolm was clever enough to understand what Clara wanted to say – and he was usually cruel enough to demand that she say it despite lacking any breath or clear thought to do so. That she was always sure to return this favour when her positions were almost literally reversed was something Malcolm also understood – and appreciated with loud, vulgar enthusiasm.

Clara didn't know exactly how much longer either one of them could stay in this chair. It was certainly not big enough for the both of them, but then again the entirety of Number Ten felt far too small to contain either one of her hearts and wills and hungers just then. The furious, demanding passion Clara was ever so diligently coaxing out of Malcolm was as overwhelming as it was exhilarating. So she wasn't exactly surprised when he withdrew his hand from her skirt (ignoring her muffled shriek made in protest) and cupped it against her cheek, his other hand soon joining in to hold her face steady between his fingers.

Malcolm kissed Clara with all the strength he could channel into his lips. It was enough to make Clara see sunshine, little flashes of light popping like fireflies on the underside of her eyes.

"Stand up," Malcolm said. His voice was gruff; it barely left his throat, and leaked out from behind his clenched teeth. As he lifted his hands off her face, he moved his mouth up to kiss her cheek, sucking at the warm, wet streak left there by the fingers had been up under her skirt.

Clara took her time getting off of his lap, not trusting her ability to stand. But the second her feet touched the plush pale carpet, Malcolm was out of the chair as well. Tall and thin and looming over her, enclosing her in the heat of his shadow.

Malcolm ran one hand down Clara's arm, wrapping his fingers around her wrist to hold on tight as the other lifted up and through her hair again. Tugging ever so gently on the strands gathered up in his hand, Malcolm pulled her head back and bent his head to kiss her once more. It was gentler than before, no lights flashing and no dizzy spells, but Clara was still reeling from the time spent in the chair.

In that moment she felt like she could do anything. It wasn't recklessness, no, nothing like that. It was courage. It was trust. It was the anticipation of being deeply and satisfyingly fucked. Nothing scared Clara anymore. Not in that moment. Not with Malcolm so close at hand.

_People don't make rebounds feel like that._

Malcolm guided her back towards the door Clara knew led to the pantry. She would have laughed if Malcolm gave her room to breathe long enough for it, but his kisses were as devouring as they were demanding, as hungry as they were full of heart. Arching up on her toes, Clara slung her arms in a tight loop around Malcolm's neck to keep her balance. She returned every kiss he gave, breaking off long enough to allow him to open the door and swing her around so that her back was pressed to the egg-shell tiled wall below the _Know Your Fire Drill _sign.

Clara chewed her swollen, sore lip to hide a laugh as Malcolm kicked the door shut. It slammed into the frame, making her teeth rattle behind her lips. Even though Clara was standing with her head just about level with Malcolm's shoulder, she had never stood taller than she did in that silly goddamn cupboard. The love and lust and blatant, bleeding need he had for her – and Clara had for him, _yes, you do, admit it, don't lie_ – filled her heart with pride. There was a buzzing in her head like a snare drum's snap, electric and dizzying and so damn divine.

"The wall or the counter?" Malcolm asked, his voice a low, eager growl that burned his throat. Her nerves were already on fire. This question didn't help with that.

Clara only had to think for a second before the answer came to her. She took her time in saying it, drawing out his frustration as long as she could. "Counter – if you don't mind clearing off a spot."

It took all of a frenzied, angry collection of seconds to make enough room for Clara on the thin countertop. Noise wasn't a problem either one of them cared about at that moment. Clara could only spare a few seconds of thought to the clatter of metal cups, saucers, and trays that Malcolm shoved out of the way with all due roughness. Then she was up on the thin counter, wriggling her way back and lifting up her hips.

Clara tugged at her panties until they were down to her knees. Malcolm, his belt unbuckled, trousers open, pulled the little swatch of black the rest of the way down off her legs. He threw the little silken bundle gracelessly to the floor. Clara grinned, keeping her eyes on Malcolm for as long as she could before she pulled her cardigan over her head, then the shirt beneath. She placed both with considerably more care on what little space was left on the little counter that she didn't occupy.

Just as Clara put both her hands on the counter to balance herself, Malcolm's mouth was on her again. He kissed the top of her breasts as he reached back with one hand to undo the clasp of her bra. In one swift, soft pull it was off, dropped down to the floor to join her panties.

Malcolm's lips moved with a tenderness that clashed with how roughly he took hold of her hip in one hand and reached under her skirt once more. In one slow, sure push he got back to making use of his fingers again. Never did Clara think she would greet the day where Malcolm's fingers made her impatient instead of just plain pleased, and yet –

"Malcolm, _honestly_," she gasped, somehow managing to sound just a bit offended. "Just fuck me already."

"Well you're certainly keen enough for it," he murmured, curling his fingers inside of Clara and pushing them in further, almost knuckle-deep. The gesture coaxed out one loud, quick moan before he pulled his fingers out, once again ignoring her protests (a growl this time).

Clara watched, propped up on her elbows with her eyes wild and her hair falling down into her eyes as Malcolm held his fingers to his lips. He waited until she moved her hair aside to clear her gaze before he took his fingers into his mouth, tasting them – tasting her.

Her breath came in sharp, fast gasps after that, like knives were cutting down through each of her ribs. "Malcolm, _please_." The words were out of her mouth before Clara could prepare for the impact that followed.

_Oh god, was that a mewl? Am I _begging _him? _She was – at least, Clara was begging as much as her pride would allow, appealing both to his ego and his libido. Such was her ace in the hole.

"That's my girl," Malcolm said, smiling as he pulled his fingers out of his mouth, running his tongue carelessly across his top lip. "There's the nice word, yeah?"

"Shut up and come _here,_" Clara snarled and sat up. She pulled on Malcolm's tie, bringing him closer, and kissed him hard enough to catch the lingering taste of her on his tongue.

Necessity demanded that they break apart and with a short jerk like a trap releasing, Clara let go of his tie. Malcolm didn't move as far back as Clara thought he would. One hand was pressed on the counter, holding onto her hand and giving it a warm, loving squeeze while the other reached into his trousers. Closing her eyes to clear her head – it was still buzzing, still snapping – Clara's back arched up as Malcolm fit the tip and then worked in every long, well-loved inch inside her in a slow, deep thrust.

Clara sprang up and wrapped her arms around Malcolm, not meaning to throw off the hand that so sweetly held onto hers, but she ended up doing exactly that. Malcolm pressed it against her lower back instead, his fingers flexing tight and scratching Clara with his nails as she squeezed her muscles around him, holding him tight at the end of every thrust. Her fingers became claws that scratched at the back of his neck, her heart shaking hard as Malcolm set a deep, quick pace.

This was new for Clara – probably not for him, but she wouldn't think about that. But it was new for Clara in the sense of how she fucked him, and how she let him fuck her. Malcolm was almost surprisingly attentive and, dare she say it, sweet, matching every warm kiss with long, deep thrust, and sure he might have an incorrigible habit for talking dirty, but Clara didn't mind that. Just like she didn't mind that he was driving so hard and so deep into her, over and over again, that the only thing that kept her from cringing in pain was the grace of god and the wet heat between her thighs.

That and the fact that Clara was glad he'd called her in not to brood dramatically for half the night over a spurned love, but to give his new lover a thorough, rough fuck.

There it was: The flipside again, taking her by surprise.

Clara clung to Malcolm, her moans becoming muffled shrieks of breathless blind ecstasy that she buried against his shoulder. When they became loud enough to draw even his attention to it, Malcolm moved his head back far enough to peer at her, curious and just a little concerned even though his eyes were white hot blind with lust.

The tip of Malcolm's nose grazed Clara's cheek as he gave her a quick, sweet kiss, hilariously out of place considering how far deep inside of her he currently was. But that was Malcolm all over, wasn't it? It definitely described sex with him. Hard enough to hurt but without any of the ache and all of the bone-deep, soul-scorching bliss. The occasional collection of bruises and bites and crescent-moon indents from his nails on her skin were badges of pride in her eyes, ones Clara would dare bare to the world – if the world were any different and if they weren't, well, themselves.

_The sweet little English teacher from Coal Hill and the Dark Lord of Downing Street. Who knew?_ Malcolm had told Clara about the nickname during one of their cupboard lunches, along with a few others he had intercepted from botched CC'd emails.

_"That's not so bad. Most people just call me impossible."_

_"Oh, I like that. Impossible. Mind if I use it on you now and then?"_

_"Depends on the context."_

"Clara, hey. Impossible girl. You all right?" The hushed tone belied the deeper sincerity of his question. Malcolm spoke in a whisper but his hands instantly turned their grip from rough, sharp shackles to a loose, gentle grasp. He slowed his thrusts, making them shorter as Clara fought for enough air and a clear head to speak.

"Don't stop," she gasped, stroking the back of Malcolm's neck with her fingertips, feeling the scratches, scrapes, and little dents of her nails in his skin. "Keep going, just like you were – _please._"

Clara's eyes slid shut as Malcolm kissed her forehead. Without a word he did exactly as she asked, resuming that hard, heavy pace with a laugh that rumbled in his throat and made her heart kick up an almighty fuss.

* * *

><p>When they were both finished – Clara came first, she always did; Malcolm made sure of it with a sort of manic devotion to building then drawing out her orgasms as much as he could – Clara pulled Malcolm down to kiss his lips, his cheeks, the tip and bridge of his nose. Anywhere and everywhere on the face that didn't cringe or shrink back from her lips. Turns out that was nowhere.<p>

"What's this for?" he asked, moving his mouth under hers. When Clara pulled back she could see that he was fighting a smile.

Malcolm's hands were flat on the counter now, positioned at either side of her hips. He had put them there to help with his own balance, waiting until he'd caught his breath before he stood up straight.

"For checking on me," Clara said, her arms still around his neck. Your eyes shone diamond bright. His were the deeper, cloudier lustre of pearls. "For calling me impossible in a nice way. You didn't have to do that."

"Course I did, it sounded like it hurt," he said at once. "As for the other - well, wasn't important. Just a nickname trial run, yeah?"

"All the same - thank you, Malcolm. And it did hurt, but not in the way you're thinking."

Malcolm considered this, staring at Clara with his lips parted and his face frozen in a look of disbelief. Muttering under his breath about masochism and the state of his luck, Malcolm helped Clara back down to her feet. His lips skimmed over hers – and then he dropped to his knees.

"Oh well _this _is surprising," Clara giggled as she stared down at him.

Malcolm ignored her, but Clara could see him shaking his head in a wordless dismissal as he reached for bra and panties, passing the first one up and holding onto the others.

"Are you going to keep that? You can bring them over when you're done, just in case you find yourself missing me later on."

"Behave," was all Malcolm said. But behaving didn't mean Clara couldn't smile.

Malcolm reached for her leg with his free hand. "Make the job a little easier and step into them, yeah? Please." he said, holding onto her ankle with the loose loop of his thin fingers.

Clara saw no reason not to do as she was asked. As Clara stepped into either little opening for her legs, Malcolm let go of her ankle. He pulled the little black silk swatch of fabric up her knees with both hands and then stood up again. Clara finished the rest, keeping her eyes locked onto his.

"Thank you," he said.

Clara raised her eyebrows high. "For what?" she asked, grabbing her shirt and cardigan and pulling both over her head.

Malcolm didn't talk until Clara's skirt was turned around to face the front and he was all tucked away again. "For coming round," he said in his low, throaty voice. "For keeping me company."

"I'd be glad to do it again if this your idea of _keeping company_," she laughed. He smiled, but it was gone too soon. "Feeling better now?" Clara asked.

Malcolm grinned. "Yes, thanks to your vag of honour," he said.

Clara's laughter echoed sharply in the small room, and this time his smile lasted much longer. Malcolm was still smiling as he saw Clara out to the cold night back to her car, kissing her hard enough to bring out the stars in her eyes.

That was when Clara knew then in her heart the full, terrifying depth to which Malcolm cared for her. She knew it from his lips, from his eyes, from his whispered _goodnight _and the way he stole another kiss again before she closed the door. No one kisses a rebound like that, like they're a warm, sweet wine to chase away a soul-deep cold. And Clara was as sure as the day and her boyfriend was long that someone who was _just a rebound_ couldn't move a man like Malcolm to invite a girl down to Number Ten for a late night shag.

_No one except his impossible girl._

Clara laughed as she drove back to her flat. So much for not belonging where Malcolm worked – the flipside, indeed – and so much for her anxiety, too. Malcolm had driven it clean and clear out of her. She hoped she could return the favour for him some day soon, perhaps not in the exact same scenario nor with the same methods of ease, but certainly in the same deeply satisfying, bared heart and brutally beautiful way. Clara hoped to always be there when Malcolm needed her. That he always seemed to need Clara wasn't the point – the point was that she wanted to make use of herself in the time allotted to his craving for care.

_Let me do this man every little bit of good that he does for me – every little bit and more, however much he needs._

Years later, Clara would succeed in doing this for Malcolm - when they forced him to resign.


	16. The Pretend World

**The Pretend World**

The minute Clara walked into the Coal Hill conference room after classes let out, wearing far too little eyeliner and way too much cover-up on her neck (she and Malcolm had a lovebite competition last night and he won_ - but just barely_) she knew she was entering into a grim, dismal zone. She could see it on the faces of her colleagues and the minister advisers that were wearing plastered-on smiles like politely programmed androids, standing in a line-up at the front of the room.

If these little personal nightmares masquerading as meetings weren't mandatory attendance, Clara wouldn't have bothered showing up at all. No polite, lengthy personal complaint she lodged against the practice convinced either the Headmaster or the school board that she was too much of a curmudgeon to be a useful attendant, however. But that didn't stop her from complaining at great length to the one audience she knew mattered most in the end: her own thoughts, and her husband.

Both were, of course, very sympathetic to Clara's plight. Mostly Malcolm, which was very nice and not in any way used as a means for sex - but his sympathy did come in the form of vulgarity Clara wasn't sure she should be learning. It was getting harder to hold her tongue during these meetings and Clara hadn't checked with any representatives lately, but she didn't think it'd be proper protocol to start comparing these meet and greet roundtable discussions to barbed wire diaphragms.

Even though it was a very accurate description.

All community projects mixing students with vaguely defined future political projects were dire pits of hellish misery that tried Clara's patience and used the children in a soul-draining, objectifying sense they were far too young to understand. More importantly, it brought Clara a bit too close to the fringes of the political sphere of influence in which Malcolm existed.

Within seconds of entering that conference room, it became downright troubling.

The school board secretary, and apathy matriarch that Clara secretly admired for her cold, maternal wrath, Gladys Kettle, stopped Clara before she took her seat in the back row. "I thought you should have a fair bit of foreknowledge, Ms. Oswald. Out of respect to you, of course."

"Of course," Clara said, nodding brightly. "Wait - sorry, what?"

"I passed your contact information along to a Nicola Murray, the secretary of state for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship? She and her advisers will be meeting you for lunch tomorrow to touch base about borrowing a few of your fourth years for a little... pet project she's working on," Mrs. Kettle said. She peered at Clara over the top of her librarian glasses, the chain of which swung perilously back and forth as she tilted her head to the side. "I suspect that you don't object to this, Ms. Oswald. Seeing as you've had your mouth closed for the duration of two lengthy sentences now. That shows some promise."

Clara repeated Mrs. Kettle's words to herself in a slow, calmer tone and tried to stop her look of horror from becoming one of disgust. "Nicola Murray? DoSAC's... Nicola Murray?"

"There is, to my knowledge, only one Nicola Murray who would pitch a project called _Field Day with the Future. _No one else would be able to say that name with as wide a smile as she can give," Mrs. Kettle said, her eyebrows lifting up slowly on her dark brown forehead. "One of her advisers should be in touch with you by the end of the day. Keep your mobile handy - but on silent. It's against meeting rules to have phones turned on."

"Yes, right. Good. Lovely." Clara's teeth hurt from the combined force of trying to grin and clench her jaw at the same time. "Thank you, Mrs. Kettle. I respectfully appreciate this foreboding - _forewarning_. This..." Clara clenched her hands to the count of ten, released her fists, then clasped them together against her chest. "This... news. Thank you. For the news. That I in no way regret having heard at all. I promise."

Mrs. Kettle lowered her head to give Clara a rather cutting gaze just as Clara crossed a little _x _over her heart.

"Right. I'll also be sending over Geoff Lawrence to help bridge the gap between you and Mrs. Murray," Mrs. Kettle said, her eyes narrowing into sharp, icy pins. "You know Geoff, yes? My deputy director? He liaises frequently with the other ministers in Nicola's building and has been chomping at the bit to work with her. And you as well," she added, giving Clara a slow, careful read that made the younger woman feel both x-rayed and absolutely vile. "I seem to recall you two getting along well until those... atrocious anonymous complaints came in. I can assure you Geoff has never engaged in any of those rather detailed illicit acts that were assigned to him."

"I trust that you know your deputy director well, Mrs. Kettle," Clara said, putting her hands on her hips - until she remembered that Mrs. Kettle would interpret that as a confrontational stance. "And I also trust that you are as ignorant of his personal and private affairs as I hope to continue to be."

Most of Clara's very publicly logged complaints about these meetings stemmed from the fact that for the first three months of her having to attend them, Geoff Lawrence would make a series of awkward, blatantly offensives passes at her. If Clara never heard the phrase _thick thighs save lives _again it would be too soon. Though she did like it when Malcolm talked about her thighs. Filthy things always sounded different coming from him. Truly, the only benefit of having Geoff near at hand for this lunch was that Malcolm would turn him into a toothpick before the waiter came to get their orders. She gave the whole thing ten, twenty minute tops before it turned into a bloodbath.

"Ms. Oswald? Clara?" Mrs. Kettle prompted, her eyebrows rising slowly up on her forehead. "Are you... with me still?"

Shaking her head to chase away all images of her thighs pressed against the sides of Malcolm's head, Clara clapped her hands and flashed a smile. "Yes! Yes I am, and yes I do know Geoff. Geoff is a - he's... well, he's a person."

At the same time as Mrs. Kettle was questioning Clara's sanity, a text came in from Malcolm (who was saved in Clara's phone as _Och Oswald - _and that was only after she saw that Malcolm had changed her to _TB, _for _Titty Bento_). Clara waited until the older woman loped off towards the front of the room to greet the Headmaster before she checked her phone.

"_Working late, then working early. Won't be home for longer than a cup of coffee. __See you at lunch tomorrow. But you don't know me, so technically it's your first time seeing me, and you're not all that impressed. This may require a bit of effort on your part. Oh and how's the neck?_"

Clara mashed her fingers against her mobile's keys and sent Malcolm nothing but a garbled gibberish mess of a response. She took her seat on the most uncomfortable, least cushioned chair in the back of the room and tried not to slump into a grumpy stylish heap. _This isn't happening. This is not happening. I don't want it to happen - but it is, so there._

Malcolm's response came back a few seconds later: _"Fret not, fair wife. I've got a plan. xxx."_

Farfetched though she knew it was, Clara hoped that Malcolm's plan involved stealing all of the Godiva Caramel Nut Brownie Dessert Truffles from the Tescos in a twelve mile radius and hopping a one-way flight to Tuscany. But alas, no - that would be what they did on their honeymoon.

* * *

><p>The day of the lunch loomed on a cold, brutal Saturday in mid-spring. Easter was approaching, which was welcome news for both residents of the Tucker household. They would need a disgustingly preposterous amount of chocolate candy to cope with this unexpected clashing of worlds.<p>

Fitting her appearance to her mood, Clara dressed in her deepest, most sombre colours: a thick navy jumper, black knife pleated skirt, nylon polka-dotted stockings, and ankle boots. She kept her hair down around her face in a dark curtain, but the wind whirled it around in a spiral. The stray light brown wisps sliced her face until she felt there were scrapes across her cheeks and chin, hissing and demanding blood.

There seemed to be a coffin lid over Clara's head as she headed to the restaurant where the lunch was being held. This miserable little lid was decorated at every edge with nails standing attentive and ready to descend with every second that ticked by. A series of swift, successive blows was all that was wanting to knock Clara down, seal her in tight in this godawful mood, and suffocate her inside her heavy, isolating dread. Thank god she wouldn't have to endure them alone. Malcolm would be here too, and that was all that mattered.

In short, this grim atmosphere was typical of a professional lunch crossed with politics, a horrendous experience Coal Hill teachers didn't often have to endure, but those who did finally understood what it meant to gaze into the abyss and have it blink placidly in response. A professional lunch with none other than Nicola Murray, whose name Clara was having trouble pretending not to remember - nor the drunken karaoke night in which they'd been acquainted. Not to mention her two advisers, Oliver Reeder and Glenn Cullen, whose names Clara also shouldn't recognise but most unfortunately did.

_Except for Glenn. Don't mind him so much. He's like the confused uncle who gets lost at a reunion._

And Geoff. Couldn't forget about Geoff.

Clara's hand froze on the handle to the restaurant. She shook her head. _No. I'd rather forget him. Or kill myself slowly with a giant syringe._

Undaunted by the fact that she was the second latest person to the lunch, Clara avoided shaking hands with almost everyone at the table. It helped that half of them were staring at her as if she'd just opened her coat and been standing there in nothing but a full-body nylon slip.

All that was missing from this unwanted agony was Malcolm's comforting presence – but Nicola assured Clara and Geoff that he was on his way, no doubt swooping down from Number Ten at this very moment.

"Can't wait! The more the merrier," Geoff said, grinning his head off.

It was going to be a long fucking day.

Clara had never fainted in her life, but she felt dangerously close to doing just that when Malcolm arrived. He made a beeline for the table and took the free seat next to Clara - and didn't even look at her. Not once.

She wasn't hurt by this, and she definitely wasn't offended by his lack of attention. _It's just part of the plan. Can't question a plan when it's in action. Or... something. Maybe. Probably. _They both had lives and jobs to keep well and fully separate from each other, _for _the sake of each other – and now they were colliding in one miserable, vomitous mass of calamity.

That overbite, floppy haired, beady-eyed roadblock known as Geoff was currently grinning ear to ear like a Muppet, sharing a laugh with MP Murray, and utterly unaware of the tension that had made most of the table go stark and pale (well, _paler, _in the case of some). Clara kept her hands flat on the table, her left buried beneath her right so her wedding ring was out of sight, but that was only because it wouldn't be socially acceptable to punch herself into unconsciousness. Not in public, anyway. That might raise a few awkward questions and earn Clara more attention than she wanted.

_But at least it would get me out of this damn lunch and remove from the spotlight. _Clara didn't often like the mental imagery it conjured up, but she was starting to understand why Malcolm referred to DoSAC as a collection of _gaping, vapid cunts._

Clara made a silent plea to Nicola for forgiveness and took a look around the table. Mr. Reeder – _Ollie, no need to be polite _– was staring back and forth from Clara and Malcolm as if his gaze could burn a brand between them like an accusation. It made Clara want to flick her fork across the table and pray for the tongs to crack his damn specs. _That'll teach him to stare. Creep._

She moved her eyes over to Glenn, who was peering at Malcolm with polite shock painted all across his ruddy complexion. His eyes were more white than anything, his gaze so wide it made his forehead crease in a sequence of folds. He was in no danger of running his mouth, unlike Ollie, but his face was a perfectly open book of astonishment. _Even Geoff could pick up on a tell like that, _Clara thought, frowning as she ticked her eyes over to Geoff,_ if he stopped looking at Nicola for five seconds._

As for Nicola... Well, she wasn't staring at Clara and Malcolm, unlike her colleagues, but Clara was starting to understand what Malcolm meant when he said that the black hole oblivion that was Nicola's idea of an adequate attention span was about as bearable as a Vlad Tepes-conducted colonoscopy.

Clara's nose wrinkled as she scowled. _That is not a thought I needed to have right now. _These thoughts left a bitter sting in her mouth, one that made Clara chew on the side of her cheek hard enough to send out a dull, throbbing pinch.

To her credit, Clara thought that Nicola was an ace at socialising. Or at least she was an ace at looking like she knew how to socialise. Nicola knew exactly when to smile at Geoff, when to pause and nod and look thoroughly intrigued by what she was hearing... but it wasn't exactly convincing. Nicola's whole idea of socialising came with all the finesse and rough, untried edges of a community theatre graduate getting a role in a film student's senior project. The effort was just too obvious, like a calm, gentle mask constantly slipping off the hysterical face barely hidden beneath. _Scale it back a bit, Nicola. Less is more. Less is absolutely more._

Speaking of masks, Clara looked at Malcolm for the first time since he arrived. There was no way she could avoid it anymore, seeing as Geoff had just started the introductions.

"And this lovely lady who's currently keeping shtum is the sweet, tragically available Clara Oswald," Geoff mused, grinning at Clara. "She's the one who will be loaning out her little terrors for _Field Day for the Future. _I have to say I'm very... _relieved _that you finally came around and agreed to this, Clara. It shows a promising initiative for a woman who was once a temporary assistant."

"That's if I agree to do this, Mr. Lawrence," Clara said, folding her fingers on her empty plate and grinning a full set of clenched teeth at Geoff. "I still need to say yes - a word I know you aren't familiar with."

"Well, you _are _attending this lunch, Ms. Oswald."

"Because I was told to... And because I was hoping to have someone else buy me omelette and chips instead of making it for myself," Clara said.

The tension around the table only strengthened after Clara spoke, resulting in cleared throats, held breaths, and narrowed gazes. If she didn't know any better, she would have said the look Malcolm gave her was one of clear pride. Doing her best to ignore Ollie's barely hidden grin, Glenn's unerringly wide stare, and Nicola's sudden look of astounded horror, Clara forced the smile on her face to become less of a bitter leer as she turned her head to look at Malcolm. She gave Malcolm a polite, tense nod.

"'Lo, Mr. Tucker," Clara muttered, the garbled word barely coming out of her mouth. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise, Ms. Oswald," Malcolm said. "And I will also be trying the omelette and chips." Malcolm's nod was just as prompt and detached as Clara's, but he wasn't even looking at her. He was staring at Geoff. Glaring, more like.

Geoff was the only one who didn't realise the tension at the table, neither its heightened intensity nor the fact that it existed in the first place. He was too busy holding onto Clara's shoulder with a hard enough grip that almost rattled the fillings in her back teeth. "She's a sweetheart, isn't she? I imagine that's why she's well on her way to terminal spinsterhood. Just can't find a man to cope with all that charm."

Clara forced a grin and a little laugh – and then shifted her chair just a few inches away from Geoff.

_No. No good. _That brought her closer to Malcolm.

Clara dragged the chair back towards the right, then pulled it in towards the table hard enough to dig into her stomach. The glasses on the table jolted, the water sloshing up the sides and threatening to spill.

_Smooth, Oswald. Great._

At Clara's side, Malcolm was sitting arrow-straight and tense, staring at Geoff with a look that made the other man's chuckle die off with a sudden stop. Ollie noticed. Glenn noticed too, but he had the better sense to pretend he hadn't. He picked up his mobile and did a credible imitation of a person who just received a message.

Nicola saw a chance to end the silence that hung low and oppressive around the table. Unfortunately she was also the one to take that chance. "That's exactly how I imagine myself with Malcolm here," she said, keeping her eyes on Geoff but reaching for Malcolm's left arm to give it a pat -

- And her hand landed on empty air instead. Malcolm had pulled his arm away at the last second, bringing his left hand up to his face and curling his fingers around his mouth and chin, creating a mask for his scowl.

Nicola stammered on, trying to redeem herself. "Not that – not the spinsterhood bit, that's drastically unrelated. And I am happily married as I am sure he - knows. And Malcolm is a great many things to me but sweet is just... a _bit _too much of a stretch. Though he is also likewise shtum right now!" she laughed. It didn't last. "So at least your associate and mine are alike in that relationship."

Malcolm glared at her.

"_Regard_!" she corrected, shaking her head. "I meant regard." Nicola paused, and the wave of anxiety that went out around the table was a force so strong it made Clara cringe.

Nicola turned to look at Ollie and Glenn, gesturing to them both in a quick sweep. "And of course the same praise applies to my nearest – dare I say dearest?" she asked.

Ollie shook his head at once. Glenn barely suppressed a horrified look before he realised people were looking at him.

"No? Okay, well – they're just my advisers then." Nicola corrected, forcing a grin. "My advisers whose distance is both respectful and... intimate."

Malcolm's eyebrows cinched forward into a harsh edge that hung over the glare in his eyes. His scowl was so pronounced that even his long fingers could hardly hide it.

"Friendly!" Nicola said, shaking her head again. "That's.. that's what I meant. Yes. Friendly."

Geoff's voice was all sympathy but his expression couldn't have been more loaded with disdain. "Please, Nicola, _please. _Relax! You're not on the record here," he said.

At these words, Malcolm took in such a deep breath that it seemed to pull all the air out of everyone around him. Nicola's jaw clenched, Ollie's shoulders hunched up so high they seemed to grow out of his neck, and Glenn had gone a terribly unappealing shade of sour milk white and squashed strawberry red.

_And here it goes, _Clara thought, pressing her lips into a tight, flat line so she didn't start to grin_. The Tucker pipebomb._

A few seconds passed and still Malcolm didn't say anything, but the look on his face was an adequate enough expression of how he felt. Clara didn't know if she wanted to translate it into a transcribed thought inside of her head. She also didn't understand why Malcolm was holding back. Every time Clara had overheard any bit of work conversation from him around the house, Malcolm hadn't failed to go into almost exquisitely enraged detail about some of the smallest frustrations. Not to mention Clara wasn't about to forget his fussing over the cupboard any time soon, despite having lost access to it three years ago.

That's when it hit her. He wasn't doing this on her behalf, was he?

_Was this part of the plan? Give himself an ulcer by suppressing his totally legitimate rage? _Clara studied Malcolm as discreetly as she could from the side of her vision. He had a vein in his temple that looked about to burst, and she didn't like how close to the surface it was growing – or how thin he was getting.

_Maybe it was time to get the body chocolate out again._

Glenn put his phone down with a light tap, and his face settled into a placid resignation for the absolute worst. Nicola laughed at something Ollie said longer than she ought to have, which earned another quick look from Malcolm before his mobile buzzed from where he'd laid it on the table.

Clara could see the screen from where she sat, cold and nervous and wishing nothing more than to collapse into the wine red carpet, which looked as flat and dull as Clara felt. "_That's your wife, isn't it?_"

Without shifting his expression from its look of thunderous disapproval, Malcolm shifted his eyes over to Clara. One pale eyebrow rose up. A silent question. Should he say yes?_  
><em>

Admitting to their relationship out in the open, in public, in this bizarro pretend world made Clara's head start to throb as if she hadn't had tea for three days. _This isn't happening. This is not happening - though I have wanted it to happen. Sort of. But not like this._

It took her a moment to work up the nerve but finally Clara nodded - then disguised it as trying to work out a crick in her neck. She peered over at Glenn, who tilted his head, curious. _Yes? _he mouthed.

Clara nodded again and picked up her glass of water. She drained half of it in three long, deep gulps.

Without missing a beat after this new development, Malcolm began to send off a new message. Not to Glenn, but to Ollie – who was saved in his address book as _The Little Cack that Couldn't._

Clara tuned even further out of the conversation than she already was, if such a thing were possible. If she could, Clara would have willed herself into a temporary deafness. She was vaguely aware that Nicola was talking to Geoff about something ridiculous – _"__What are the fundamental differences between miniature horses and ponies? Do you know?"_ – and that Glenn had given his own menu a desolate prod closer to the centre of the table, tutting under his breath.

"_Wake the fuck up and start hounding this discarded flap of foreskin about his antefuckingdiluvian, chauvinistic sense of humour. No one wants him around any conversations about the future. Not even Nicola." _Malcolm typed this out with an ease that was almost grace. Only his gaze, what part of it Clara could see in profile, betrayed how he felt: that ever-ready force and fury of his mind burned inside his granite-hard glare.

Malcolm set his phone down on his still empty plate, met Glenn's eyes for a quick, shared nod, and resumed his task of trying to glare a hole through Geoff's forehead. Immediately afterwards, Clara relaxed in her chair just as Ollie, who was sitting directly across from her, darted up in his seat to dig his mobile out of his pocket.

"So – Mr. Tucker, was it? What brought you here today?" Geoff asked, smiling around the brim of his glass as he took a sip of water. "You weren't listed among Nicola's guests when I had the reservation made - nor did Clara inform me about any surprise attendants when I double-checked to make sure she would indeed be coming here alone. As expected. Though I suppose she's allowed _few _little blunders," he chuckled, reaching to pat her shoulder again.

One look from Clara stopped Geoff's hand flat in the air. As if that weren't enough, Malcolm slowly tilted his head to give what Clara called his "_Trying to find the best place to stab you"_ look at Geoff. Malcolm often showed it off when relaying a few of his best office rants to Clara, but the full force of his rage was diluted since he was looking at her and not someone he wanted to turn into a smear of grease and gore over a sewer grate.

After a brief pause, Malcolm's jaw tensed as he gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He moved his eyes over to Ollie in a long, obvious look that, of course, Geoff missed.

Ollie cleared his throat loud enough to draw all eyes to him. "Speaking of erm – blunders. Mr. Lawrence... what I think Nicola is far too kind to mention for herself is how... troubling and, er," he checked his phone again, then palmed it, hiding the screen from Glenn and Nicola's curious gazes. " – antediluvian chauvinistic sense of humour?"

Geoff's already blotchy red face became even redder as he laughed. "What, I – I don't... I … can't – what?"

Clara hated his laugh. It was such an awful almighty sound, a pure wet chortle that shook his weak chin and made his chest jump. Geoff's laugh was so damp it reminded Clara of all the wet, hideous bits of hidden life tucked away inside his skin. His lungs, his larynx, the thorough, defiant ticking of his poor heart. His laugh didn't humanise him as much as it rendered him even more repulsive on a greater physical level. It reminded Clara that he was actually real and not a nightmarish concoction of outdated men who made her want to chug battery acid.

As Geoff prepared his answer, Clara caught Malcolm peering at her. He glanced from her to the stretch of the corridor outside the dining room, where the coat check, host's podium, and restrooms were waiting just out of sight as temporary sanctuaries. It wasn't until Malcolm repeated his look again, letting his eyes hold longer on her face then slowly sliding towards that hallway, did the message click into place.

Geoff had just started to explain how he knew nothing about _that_ business when Clara stood up, murmured some excuse about a sudden onset of ennui, and walked quickly towards the corridor. She made sure that she didn't talk loud enough to be actually heard.

With every step she took, Clara's heart clanged in her chest like a fist hitting the skin of a drum. _Boomp. Boomp. Boomp. _Louder and harder it beat, until her pulse began to echo up and devour all the thoughts inside her head.

Clara reached the corridor and began to pace restlessly up and down the carpet, shaking the tension out of her hands. This lunch was like when she dropped into Malcolm's office all over again... only this was tremendously _worse _than that. Instead of being almost comically ignorant of the minefield into which she had tread back then, now Clara was actually given _some _length of time to prepare for it – and it hadn't helped. Not one bit.

_And there's no fucking pantry to hide in when I need to relax._

"Miss? Are you all right?"

Clara pinched the bridge of her nose and took in a long, low breath. "Yes, I'm all right," she said, only when she could trust her voice again. She smiled at the host, an average-sized, average-faced, completely harmless young man who was currently her favourite person in this restaurant. Excluding Malcolm, of course. Naturally.

The host returned to his post, allowing Clara to drop both her hand and her calm demeanour. Luckily Malcolm appeared a second later, rounding the corner in a swift sequence of strides that closed the distance between them.

"How did you get away?" Clara asked him when he approached her.

"Private call, very important. Couldn't miss it," Malcolm said as he weighed his mobile in his hand, peering expectantly at the screen.

"How am I going to get out of here, Malcolm?" Clara asked, trying not to pull at her hair. She was ready to claw her face off, but she didn't think this situation was worth any long-term scarring.

"You won't," Malcolm said simply. "You're staying. We all are. Even though I personally submit to you that the absolute waste of a fuck name _Geoff_ would have his day better spent being catapulted screaming into traffic." He tilted his head and smiled at Clara, boyish and bizarrely charming despite the violent nature of this threat. "What are your thoughts on that, Ms. Oswald?"

Clara considered this idea carefully, staring at the swirled patterns of the varnish on the oak panelling until it made her dizzy. "I was thinking more of strapping him to the third rail at Moorgate after lunch, but – " she paused. Clara's hands lashed out of their own volition and grabbed onto Malcolm's arms for support. "What? What do you mean I'm _staying_?"

Malcolm lifted his gaze from off his phone and drank in her expression, as well as the fact that Clara were clinging to him. Clara drew her hands back as if scalded, folding her arms again.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"You don't have to be sorry," he said, his voice a low purr that instantly made Clara relax. Malcolm gestured vaguely to his face, the folded eyebrows, the wrinkled scowl. "I'm not cross with you, this is just how I look in public. You know that."

"I know, and I can't blame you," Clara said, reaching out to stroke his arm again. "You can be cross enough for the both of us, okay? With some rage to spare for later."

Malcolm and Clara shared a smile in silence. It was the first time the two of them looked each other full in the face since this lunch began without any hidden, panicked messages moving between their gazes. The effect of Malcolm's open, sincere attention was immediate. The warmth in his eyes held Clara in thrall, and her heart eased out of its death grip as her mind cleared. Eventually a wave of relaxation freed Malcolm from his own public mask of professional ire. It was as touching to witness as it was to know that Clara and Clara alone was the cause of that sweet, rare smile.

"Please relax, sweetheart," he said, letting the barest edge of his fingers graze over the back of her hand before Clara pulled it away. "Relax and let me explain what we're going to do."

_This _was the Malcolm that Clara knew, the Malcolm that Clara loved and who clearly loved her, too. Clara pitied the other Malcolm, the one who had joined Clara at the table for a lunch, the Director of Communications-Malcolm. Clara accepted his presence inside the man who could also make her red-faced in frustration over "titty bento" and dirty phone calls; the man who could feed the local stray cat with the same careful, loving diligence he applied to writing speeches, striking out interview quotes, and stirring the creamer into her coffee. Pity and acceptance, yes, that's what this other, craftier, public version of Malcolm earned in spades – but never fear, never hatred.

_Aggressive irritation and bottom of the barrel patience-scraping, sure, fine. That couldn't be denied. _Nor could Clara deny how much she enjoyed getting to watch Malcolm work like this in real time.

That was certainly new to her. _Just as long as it doesn't become a turn on like his swearing, I should be fine._

"I wasn't trying to stop you from doing that, I just – " Clara took a breath, squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open. The pale light of the April day bleeding in through the front doors made a silhouette of most of Malcolm's face, throwing him mostly in shadow. " – Please explain it to me in a way that makes me not want to scream for four hours straight. Okay? Can you do that?"

A person brushed past Clara and Malcolm, muttering loudly under their breath as they moved towards the men's room. They both stepped to the side to avoid them, which brought them closer together – and then made them take a step back, creating enough space for a phonebooth to rest comfortably between them.

Clara's shoulders brushed the dark, oak-panelled wall to her right and she tilted her head back to keep Malcolm in her sight. "So. What's the plan, Malcolm?" she asked.

Malcolm glanced quickly at his mobile again, nodded once, then turned his attention back to Clara. "Listen – distance is suspicious, yeah?" he began.

Clara looked at the phonebooth-sized gap between her husband and herself, her eyebrows raised. But that wasn't what made her confused. "You're rhyming. Why are you rhyming? You never rhyme."

Malcolm looked as if he was trying not to smile again, which in turn made Clara want to sigh happily and stare dreamily into his eyes.

_No. Stop it. Focus._

"Sweetheart, I once had to draft two dozen limericks _about_ limericks for the Prime Minister on a trip he was planning to take _to_ Limerick," Malcolm said, separating that sentence with a gradual momentum that expressed complete exhaustion. "If I don't rhyme anymore, it's because that experience has ruined me. And he didn't even fucking go so it was –" Malcolm broke off with a sigh. "I don't want to mention it," he muttered, clicking his teeth together.

Malcolm folded his arms, making the sleeves of his suit coat wedge up into wrinkles. "And besides, you know I prefer free form, Clara."

Clara waved her hand. "Right right, of course, I could never forget her love letters," she said. "So. Distance is... suspicious? That's part of your plan?"

"It's the _slogan_ of a concept that will lead to a plan," Malcolm said. "Now you hopefully _may_ be a little less fussed to know that I've got the Little Cack That Couldn't buying us about another minute of free time, so let me explain what I can in the now – " he checked his watch " – fifty-four seconds of free conversation we have."

"Right, of course," Clara said, nodding. "And I saw that name in your address book, by the way. Very clever."

"Thank you," Malcolm said, smiling fondly at her. "I was also thinking of Specky Botch of Nature and Poxbridge Abortion Clinic Reject."

"Well I'm glad you scaled herself back from those two," Clara said as she shook her hands to undo the tension in them once again.

Closing her eyes once more and holding her hands flat against her forehead, Clara went for a tiny pace up and down the hallway before she returned to Malcolm. "Okay, a plan. Or a … a slogan of a plan. Let's go. Lay it on me." Clara patted her hands hard against her chest, flattening her jumper.

Malcolm peered Clara up and down – and then shook himself from his thoughts with a credible effort. "Listen," he said, holding his hand up to stop Clara from pacing again. "Any attempt to deflect too much attention from either one of us will only let them know that there _is _no distance. And then they'll be on us in a way that's... far less flattering than that little dotted bra of yours, yeah?"

Clara couldn't even pretend to support that idea, even if it came from her favourite person in the world who was now trying to remember which bra Clara had put on that morning. _It _was_ the polka dots, dammit._

"Malc, how is that even going to work? Half of that table _knows_ I'm married to you already," Clara hissed under her breath, daring to step into the phonebooth space again and enter within his personal range. "Unless you've forgotten, you and I have run into all of those people in strictly non-professional situations. Except for Geoff. Who I hope you would have killed in a discreet, absolutely deplorable way."

"Yeah, and if I could I would dig those memories out of my brain with a flat-head screwdriver," Malcolm snorted.

Clara paused to rattle off those memories on her fingers. "Drunken karaoke, where I was introduced as a _personal trainer_ and had to listen to Nicola bombard me with very invasive questions about how I keep you so thin."

Malcolm grinned.

Clara shook her head. "No stop it, it was embarrassing. And before _that_ there was a coffee shop date that your good friend the Little Cack sabotaged. I made a very off colour joke about self-harm back then that I still regret to this day."

"I know you do, Clara. You still mention it in your sleep... sometimes," Malcolm murmured.

"And... and I forgot how I met Glenn but you can throw him in there too," Clara said, holding up three of her fingers and waggling them in Malcolm's face.

He brushed them gently aside, and gave her hand a squeeze. "You didn't meet Glenn, he figured it out on his own," Malcolm said, shaking his head and waving his own hand. His left hand, Clara couldn't help but notice. The wedding ring flashed in the air, catching the light. "I'm not sure the man actually has a social life, you know. He once took a holiday in Wales to help remodel a house."

"Wow, Wales? Really?" Clara said, taking that in. "... Is that a – a hobby of his?"

"No, it was a favour for his sister."

"Oh how nice," Clara cheered in as quiet a voice as she could manage and still sound sincere. "Always liked Glenn, you know. Nice Glenn. Sweet Glenn." Clara's smile slipped away just as quickly as Malcolm's had. "He has to get his face under control or I'll peel it off and make it into a hat. It's like a bloody red arrow pointing at us each time we make eye contact and it just screams _secret - effin' marriage!_"

"No, that was you screaming that just now in a very loud whisper," Malcolm countered. "And it'd be much more satisfying to poke out his eyes with a steak knife. You can do better as far as man-made hats are concerned, Clara. Ollie's got those little shorthair curls on his head. They'd make a nice frill."

"Oh my god, you're stalling," Clara said, discovering the truth as she said it. This stole the breath out of her chest, making her panic rise to a new level. It blew the surprise office visit clear out of the water, that was for sure. "You're rhyming and you're stalling and – and I think we used up our fifty-four seconds already, which means one of us has to run back in there and rejoin that table_._"

"No, we're not doing that," Malcolm said, holding his hands out to steady Clara, not quite touching her arms but coming close enough. "Not when you're eyeing the front door like you're planning to run out of it screaming."

"I wasn't going to scream... out loud. And I can't run in these heels, you know that," Clara grumbled as she looked down at her feet, briefly tempted to start kicking a divot into the floor – despite it being made out of hard wood. "And now I'm in the phonebooth space. I shouldn't be in the space. We're too close."

"Sweetheart, I don't –" Malcolm passed his hand over his face. It didn't change his expression but it did give him room to breathe, break eye contact with Clara. Not exactly nervous fidgets, but clear signs of tension. "You have a panicked prattle, do you know that? And when you panic and prattle I have to admit I have a tendency to drift off until you pause for breath so I can interrupt you."

"That's not very nice of you," Clara said, putting her hands on her hips. Malcolm wouldn't interpret it as a confrontational stance, he was far more reasonable than Gladys Kettle. "Unless you're doing it for a nice reason?"

"I'm doing it because otherwise I'm afraid you'll talk yourself into a nervous collapse if I don't cut you off," Malcolm admitted. "Is that nice enough?"

"It's very nice. And very astute. I think I did that once last year."

"Twice," Malcolm said. "Please stop, it's just a little fucking terrifying seeing your eyes roll back in your head."

"I love you," Clara blurted out.

"I love you too, now please take a breath," Malcolm said. "I'm almost certain the wall is the one thing holding you up straight right now."

Clara leaned even harder on the wall in response as she forced out a laugh. "What? That's – no, please," Clara chuckled. And then she had to stop because it was talking and laughing at the same time was making her dizzy.

"Malcolm, you know I think you're a gorgeous genius and I would never poke holes into anything you do because that's defeatist and wrong – and I know you get enough of that at work –"

"Still breathing?" he prompted.

Clara did as he asked, shaking her hands again. "But right now I'm going to do exactly that and apologise for it later. Consider this a hole being poked."

"Apology prematurely accepted but please, darling – _listen._" Malcolm paused, testing her silence to see if it would fail. It didn't – but that's only because Clara actually got lost in his eyes this time. "I am actually aware that half the table in there knows about us. Or has vague inebriated memories to cobble together about us interacting in a public sphere. But I didn't mean that we'd put on a show for them."

Clara waited. Malcolm looked at her, expectant. Clara took a long breath.

"Just checking," Malcolm said, nodding. "I meant the hacks Nicola had Terri call so they could stage a Meet Your Meat before they fuck off back to DoSAC." He hesitated. "You would unfortunately be the meat in this context, Clara."

Ten seconds ticked by in silence. Clara counted them down inside her head while the sights of shrieking nightmarish hellscapes came to life in her mind's eye.

"Oh," Clara said.

Malcolm's expectant look soon faded. "You're handling that statement very well," he said, looking Clara over quickly.

"That's because you can't hear all the internal agonised screaming," Clara said, tapping the side of her head.

"But at least you're still on her feet," he prompted.

"Yes, exactly. Keep her eye on the positive, I like that. So – press people. There's... press people. In there." Clara jabbed her finger at the dining room in a nervous little poke before she curled her finger back into her hand. _Don't point and poke, that draws attention._ "In there eating and talking and observing like they're actual... people."

"Precisely. I like your disdain – but it's also not very many of them."

Clara wasn't sure if she believed this. "How many is _not many_ to you, Malcolm? Because to me even _one _is too many," Clara said.

Malcolm held his hands flat against his chest, shaking his head. "Sweetheart, I'd much rather they all be gassed instead of sharing mindless fucking chit-chat over afternoon cocktails myself, but they're here, yes? They're here and they're watching and they're waiting for their turn to throw shit into the flaming pile. But I've got it all sorted. And exhale."

Clara exhaled. "Thank you for trying to hold me together, Malcolm. I really appreciate it."

"Of course, what else did you expect me to do?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting together. "You're my wife – and I mean this in the nicest way possible but I don't like how many of these pseudo-people know about that. I'd like to knock a few of them off."

This was one of the sweetest threats Malcolm had ever said in a romantic context. "And you're my husband and I understand that. Because you're also my best friend... and hopefully the last love of my life because I'm already in pretty deep with yours. Just like you are with mine."

Malcolm's mouth twitched into a silent laugh.

Clara cut him off with a sharp poke in his chest. "No penis jokes. Just... tuck that one in for another time."

"I'll tell you it later," Malcolm promised. "And now that we've been out in this corridor for almost ten minutes, I hope I can finally turn this tremendous wreckage of a conversation back onto the plan?"

Clara nodded and clasped her hands. "Yes, please."

"The charade of a lunch we've got festering in that other room is just a way to blow the cover off your Muppet-mouthed friend in there, yeah?" he said. "The story is he's set himself up to be present here today for the express purpose of getting into the knickers of glummy mummy over there."

Clara stared at Malcolm, her mouth sliding open. "Who, _Nicola_? Married mother with... lots of _kids_ Nicola?"

Malcolm waited for the look of horror to fade from Clara's face. "That's the only Nicola I know. And I don't even like to say that I know her."

"Malcolm, how is this story going to work? Where's the proof?"

The instant the question left her mouth, Malcolm grinned at Clara and shook his head slowly back and forth. "Oh... that's such an innocent question," he mused under his breath. Now it was his turn to stare at Clara dreamily. "Can you ask it again? It's almost adorable."

"I'm not going to do that, no," Clara said. "Not until you stop leering at me like that, it's weird."

Malcolm pinched the bridge of his nose and pulled himself together with a credible, noticeable effort.

And then the plan finally hit Clara. "Oh... Oh, I see," she said. "You're going to just make it up, aren't you?"

"There you are, you've finally crossed the finished line," Malcolm said, giving her shoulder a quick pat. "Now hopefully you and the Daily Mail and the Post and whoever the fuck else is hiding a wire up their knickers and a telephoto lens down the front of their trousers will catch onto that too. They won't even have eyes for us. I promise."

After a pause in which Clara breathed of her own volition, Malcolm regarded her with a sincere smile. It was like a warm caress. "Are you ready to go back to the table now?" he asked. "Although you may want to come up with a decent cover story as to why you faffed about in the ladies for fifteen minutes."

"I'll meet you in there," Clara said, patting Malcolm's arm. "go show me how you're going to frustrate Geoff into wanting to chew on glass." Clara ran her fingers over and under Malcolm's lapel. "It's a professional curiosity. Nothing personal."

Malcolm said nothing but his eyes were still flashing bright. He _wanted _Clara to see him work like this. He _wanted _Clara to see him pull the strings, command the table, and set the course for the rest of this hopefully short lunch – all without lifting a finger to do it directly.

_Okay, maybe a thumb and forefinger for texting purposes. But that's it._

In the world Clara and Malcolm were crafting in their marriage, safe and sequestered in the home that she was now missing more than ever, Clara might have objected to seeing Malcolm act this way. Perhaps she would have been politely aghast at what Malcolm was suggesting. However, here in the pretend world where masks hid more than just true faces, Clara had to admit there was something incredibly freeing... about this anger.

"Okay. Let's go, I'm ready."

Clara and Malcolm went back into the main part of the restaurant ten paces apart from each other, keeping their faces clear, their eyes pointed forward, and a constantly running, silent command about not breaking out into a run. Back at the table, Ollie had just given Geoff a rest when it came to the questions, leaving him to pick morosely at what was left of the bread basket. Glenn had taken up the interrogation instead, listening with as patient an expression as he could force upon his face as Geoff tried to explain that the statements a person made so seldom reflected their personal stance.

The irony of Geoff explaining this to a table full of politicians - while he himself worked for politicians - was, sadly, lost on him. But Clara filed it away for a later hysterical night of laughter as she listened to him stammer out nervous peals of laughter. Geoff's beady little eyes were practically begging Clara for help as she tucked back into her plate again. Clara's stomach shrivelled up with nausea as she became the target of his gaze again, but luckily Malcolm was there in her peripheral, keeping her grounded and steady.

Before Geoff could draw Clara into his and Glenn's conversation, Malcolm gave Clara's arm a very gentle, polite tap. He offered her a smile that was well within the accepted behaviour of two pretend strangers. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you've been introduced to those on my little team here, have you? No, keep talking Glenn, I won't interrupt you," Malcolm said, smiling a face full of charm. He looked at Clara again. "That's Glenn Cullen over there. He's part of the old guard, but there's still some spark of life in him yet."

Glenn caught the hint at once, hid his nod by pretending he had a crick in his neck (a trick Clara was very familiar with), and cut Geoff off. "That's all very nice, Mr. Lawrence, but I'm not exactly sure if anything you've been attempting to stutter out within the past four minutes amounts to an actual sentence. Or even half of one."

Malcolm gently tapped Clara's shoulder with two fingers to get her attention again. "That specky peckish wonder over there is Nicola Murray's little noisemaker, Ollie Reeder." He gestured to the mobile that was not so carefully hidden between Ollie's plate and his glass of water. "Nose to the MMS grindstone, eh? You know they used to be worried those things would plant tumours in your head. I'd give that some careful amount of thought, Ollie."

Clara caught Ollie's eye and managed to force herself to make a little perfunctory nod. Neither one of them moved to shake hands – the table notwithstanding, Clara had experience with sharing physical contact with this man and had no wish to repeat the process. Ollie was of a similar _"__no contact" _mindset, though he did manage to wave at her. That was nice.

_Or a basic form of human interaction that shouldn't be given any form of credit._

"Hello," he muttered. "Ms... Oswald."

"Hi."

As Malcolm turned to Nicola, things took a bit of a swerving, wobbling turn. Nicola was smiling with a look that put Clara in mind of her step-mother's knowing, satisfied expressions. It made Clara want to shove a fork through her palm.

"I know what you're going to say, Malcolm," Nicola said.

"Do you now?" he mused, smirking at Clara. "Well that makes my job a fair bit easier, doesn't it?"

Half of the table shared a laugh. Ollie was too distracted by his mobile – Clara heard him mention something about "Emma" before he rose form his seat and darted off, shoulders hunched as he assumed the usual tense, pleading position.

"Yes, and before you hand off a... backhanded compliment that barely disguises your true feelings, at least let me speak somewhat in my own defence."

"Oh there's no need for that, Mrs. Murray," Clara cut in. "You don't have to defend yourself at all_, _don't worry. I wouldn't judge a stranger like that."

Christ, was that _her _voice just now? So bubbly and cheerful, so free of any of the usual rotten, choking anxiety? Who knew Clara could blend in so well when thrown to the still teething wolves of the pretend world? Certainly not Clara herself. And not Malcolm, considering the pensive look he was giving her now. Clara did have to admit that it did sound as if she had sucked all the helium out of a latex balloon before speaking.

"Well that's – er – comforting," Nicola laughed. "Forgive me for assuming, but I expected something just a bit more _brusque_ from the woman Malcolm calls his wife!"

Clara and Nicola were both very lucky that Geoff's mobile distracted him. He hadn't caught what Nicola said at all.

But Malcolm did. He waited until Geoff left the table before he tore into Nicola – and he did so with a hushed voice that was more terrifying than any yell. His expression, to put it simply, was fucking _livid _with a level of rage that was almost sophisticated.

"You're lucky he missed you taking that little verbal shit, Nicola," Malcolm said. "Doubt even he'd still fancy you after a spit up like that."

"Sorry – _you knew_?" Glenn asked, astonished, staring at Nicola with his mouth open wide.

"Knew what?" Ollie asked, standing behind his chair and peering around at the rest of the table. "Oh, was this about the terrifying secret wife Malcolm's been keeping?" he said, then he caught Clara's look. "Who I'm sure is a very respectable, surprisingly... young woman. Who would never think to take a man's coffee after engaging him in an half-threatening conversation."

"Course I knew – why, when did you find out?" Nicola asked Glenn, ignoring Ollie completely. That was probably for the best.

"When he started wearing the bloody ring five years ago," Glenn said, gesturing to Malcolm's hand.

"Enough. All of you," Malcolm said, his voice oddly thunderous despite being so quiet. He scowled around the table at everyone (excluding Clara, of course), and registered their mingled blank and exasperated expressions. "Right, here's the line, yeah? I don't have a wife. This ring?" He held up his hand, then lowered it after they all had a look. "It's not what you think. Better than that, _it doesn't exist._"

"Of course it exists, Malcolm," Glenn scoffed. "We can all see it. There's one on her hand, too."

Ollie was still looking at Clara with a curiosity of such a meek, deceptive cast it could have been mistaken for sympathy. Clara didn't know Ollie better than that, but she knew _men _like Ollie better than that. Men like Ollie and Geoff were patient wolves whose docility belied their rapacious, merciless appetites rooted solely in self-congratulation. And they should all be cheerfully beaten into submission by men like Malcolm.

"Glenn, this isn't your first fucking talk about lines, is it?" Malcolm asked.

"No, of course not," he said.

"So why are you making me spare the time explaining _this _to you when I could very well and easily be quietly promising to deprive Nicola of the use her jaw for the next four fucking months?" Malcolm asked.

Nicola closed her eyes. "It was an honest mistake, Malcolm – "

"Hang on, sorry," Ollie said, holding up his hands. He turned to Glenn. "_You _knew about her? And Malcolm let you live?"

"Malcolm and I are about to be the only two people who walk away from this fucking table if you don't _shut it_," Clara said to them all, still bright, still cheerful, still smiling wide enough to make her face hurt.

Everything got very unsurprisingly awkward and quiet after that.

Malcolm cleared his throat with a gentle _hem_ and shifted in his seat. "Right, okay. The line is there's nothing to know, yeah? Nothing know about a ring that isn't real, or a pretty young wife who may or may not be an amalgamation of disgruntled little specky twat's mad, jealous fantasies."

Ollie frowned. "You really lost me there, Malcolm."

"Stay lost, please, it would help us all," Clara said.

Even Nicola had to nod at that.

"None of those fucking things I listed actually fucking exist in any concept of reality that you work and hope to continuing living in. Understood?" Malcolm said, grinning ear to ear at the rest of the table.

"May I at least ask _why _we're being casually threatened to keep your secret?" Nicola asked, narrowing her eyes into something that was not quite a glare. She lacked the pure wrath necessary for that. Plus her mascara and eye shadow make her look very warm and relaxed.

Malcolm didn't get a chance to respond. Something in Clara snapped just then. Perhaps it was the anxiety and all the exposure to the double force of hers and Malcolm's pretend worlds colliding.

Clara leaned forward, pressed her hands flat against the table, and said, "Because my life with Malcolm means more to me than whatever you _hope _to accomplish in yours – professionally," Clara added. "I won't pretend to be able to make personal slights against your life and have them be accurate, Mrs. Murray. With all due respect."

"That's... also comforting," Nicola said, frowning as she puzzled that statement over. "If just a bit difficult to accept, however. Considering the comment that preceded it. But... thank you."

Malcolm glanced at the corridor, looking for Geoff. He sat further back in his chair and held himself very still. "Hang on, company's back. Smile, you lot, or you'll be picking your teeth off the fucking ground next."

Glenn was the first to laugh. Clara joined him, shaking her head and hiding her smile behind her hand – her _right _hand. Clara's left hand sat flat on her lap, hidden under the table. It was a testament to how adamantly persistently her _"__pretend world"_ ruse was that the slow, gentle press of Malcolm's fingers along the back of Clara's hand didn't even generate so much as a blink. Clara hid her happiness completely, keeping her face so neatly composed, but Clara couldn't risk extending her pinkie up to snag it on the bent edge of his own.

Clara's touch regenerated Malcolm in a way only she could adequately tell. The vile air around him seemed to disperse, rid free of its mournful, miserable poison and able to provide some small bit of relief instead. She thought that vein in his forehead even eased back.

Geoff resumed his seat amid the laughter, looking expectant again. "Right, so. Where were we?" The words were barely out of his mouth before his mobile rang again – his _and _Ollie's. They both cursed loudly and left as a pair back to the corridor, barely dodging around an obviously frustrated waiter.

Malcolm scratched at forehead and turned to Clara. "Have you had enough of this?" he asked.

Clara gently removed her hand from under his (both of them were still hidden beneath the table) and peered at her watch. "I held out longer than I thought I would," Clara said. "I should be heading home now. I trust you'll all play nice with Geoff? He won't even notice I'm gone, so please try to get along without a chaperone. Or eat him for lunch and throw him in the bin, I don't care." She stood up. "Oh and please consider this my official withdrawal of any permission to come near my students." Clara looked at Nicola. "It's not personal, I just - I really don't know what an idea like _Field Day with the Future _actually means?"

Nicola held up her finger as if she wanted to interrupt, but Clara cut her off.

"No, please don't tell me. I don't want to know. But best of luck with whatever... it is."

Without waiting for the rest of the table's comments, Clara stood up and grabbed her coat and purse in surprisingly steady hands. It helped that Clara didn't look at Malcolm, though it felt highly unnatural considering how aware and attentive they both were around each other.

"It was nice meeting you all... again," Clara said, her smile vanishing the longer she held it in place and made eye contact with the DoSAC duo. "But please don't be offended when I say I never want to do this again – though it was nice finally seeing you face to face, Glenn."

Clara returned Glenn's little wave before she turned on her heel and stalked off, keeping her arms tucked firmly into her sides so she didn't accidentally elbow the back of Malcolm's head and sabotage her impressive exit.

Clara strode out into the hallway, through the front doors, and back into the brisk, chilling day of London in winter. She didn't once look back.

* * *

><p>Malcolm caught up to with Clara almost a block later. She recognised the heavy sound of his footsteps before she heard his voice ("Get Angela Heaney on it, for fuck's sake. Do you want us to hold her hand even while you piss, Ollie?"). Clara's smile relaxed into an easy, true grin as Malcolm matched his pace to hers, adapting quite easily to being at her side with just as much ease as he ruined people's lives.<p>

They walked in silence side by side for a full minute, still treading the line Malcolm had set back in the restaurant, but its hold was starting to slip. Malcolm's hand brushed Clara's, his fingers skimming across her skin in a light touch that was part yearning, part reassuring despite his own blatant need. They locked pinkies again, squeezing each other for all the strength they had in that small, strange little digit.

When it came time for them to part ways at the crosswalk up ahead, Clara and Malcolm were both needy and eager enough to give each other a daring kiss. She darted up on the toes of her boots while Malcolm hunched his shoulders and ducked his head to meet the warm crash of her lips.

Neither of them heard the distant _click _of the camera shutter halfway up the block, nor did Clara and Malcolm know they were the dead-centre focus of a telephoto lens.

* * *

><p><strong>Addendum: <strong>_To the anon reviewer who commented on this to correct me on a feature of the UK press - don't worry, I know. Don't get ahead of me now :3_


	17. The Way Things Could Have Been

**Notes**: This chapter is an _In The Loop_-based AU, a _one shot fic that is separate from the main story_ (and TTOI's timeline). **THAT MEANS THAT IT DOES NOT ADHERE TO THE MAIN FIC'S CANON.** There are differences. Some reviewers have already spotted them and tried to correct me on them. Please don't do this.

I recommend you at least watch the film _In The Loop_ before reading the chapter, otherwise some parts might not make sense. Now, as for the chapter itself: It's a condensed version of Malcolm and Clara's entire relationship, with the added benefit of predicting the main story's future - maybe.

* * *

><p><strong>The Way Things Could Have Been <strong>

The lovely menace that was Clara's husband, Malcolm Tucker, Bastard of Bastards, turned to her and said, "_Yes, _ok, _fine_. If I'm gone for longer than three days, you have my full and happy permission to build an effigy in my likeness and cart it around town with you."

Clara smiled, pleased with her temporary, minor victory. Getting Malcolm to go along with a joke when he was strained to the point of sharp, needling bitterness wasn't an easy accomplishment, especially when he brought his work home with him and focused on that more than anything else. "Work-mode Malcolm" often had his voice switched to loud and his face frozen into a default, low level of rage, which made it a terribly confusing affair when he smiled at Clara. Angry smiles had a habit of turning into a kind of vicious leer.

"I'd only do it because I would miss you," Clara said as she studied Malcolm from the doorway, leaning her shoulder against the frame. "And once the mourning period was over, I would send it off down the Thames in a flaming barge, in lieu of a proper funeral – like you requested in the will."

Clara said all this as she carefully entered the office room, straying into the uneasy, tense atmosphere of "Work-mode Malcolm's" abode. Slowly, making sure not to draw attention to herself, she approached where Malcolm sat at the desk. He was half turned to face her, but his head was currently bent over the desk to peer at a message on his phone and several unkempt layers of pages sticking out of a folder. Malcolm was horribly distracted and yet razor-sharp focused, a strange mixture of the two, as he always was when work was involved – and then Clara brought up the funeral, and the spell broke.

Malcolm lifted his head and turned to look at Clara, scowling all across his face. Clara was close enough to touch him but she kept her hands to herself. That stare of his had a habit of locking Clara in wherever she stood, and of freezing words en route out Clara's mouth. Not because she was afraid –_how could I be?_ _This big, silly scarecrow of a man_ – but because she knew it was better to wait. Once the ice shell broke off from Malcolm's face, then it would be best to show him physical and verbal affection. Only then could he properly appreciate the effort, after making one of his own.

"I thought the will said I preferred to be sectioned off and fed to a pack of wolves," he said. "Did I not change that yet?" Malcolm waved his hand as he spoke, opening his fingers back and forth like a little wave, beckoning Clara closer.

Still she didn't move. Not until she saw the light in his eyes, not until she saw a smile.

After a brief pause, Clara got what she wanted. Malcolm smiled at her, an expression that created less wrinkles about the forehead and more around his thin mouth and pale, striking eyes, whose colours depended entirely on the lights of the room and the thoughts within his head. Or so it seemed. _Mood eyes – as if Malcolm's face weren't enough of a grand advertisement for his thoughts._

Clara took Malcolm's hand, gave it a squeeze, and sat down on his lap. As she coiled one arm around the back of his neck, Malcolm busied himself by toying with the fingers on her other hand, a strange, nervous fidget that left her feeling happily examined.

"Must have forgotten to add that," she said, shrugging. "You do have a habit of working herself so hard that you exhaust bone marrow, Malcolm."

As was his custom whenever she pointed out how tirelessly he worked, which Clara considered a form of masochism if truth need be known, Malcolm let the comment pass without remark. He said nothing, not because he had nothing to say, but because it was his job to pick verbal battles and victories. Although he would usually be all too happy to square off against anyone, Malcolm was far more careful when it came to Clara. This, she knew, was out of fear – not _of_ her but of _losing_ her.

But Clara didn't like to think about it unless she had to.

"I also recall a veto on golden idols and all other iconography bearing my likeness," Malcolm continued, his voice dipping low into a thoughtful tone.

"Fine. I won't burn the effigy," Clara said, kissing the side of his mouth. "I'll need to save at least one of them for dates."

Malcolm freed his hand from Clara's and wrapped both his arms around her waist, stroking his hands up and down her back. It was more to keep himself warm than it was to warm her: he was always the cold one of the pair, in contrast to Clara's skin that was like an ever-burning fire. Malcolm's touch was like flint against her body, every little stroke and gesture giving birth to sparks that would and could consume the both of them whole.

When Clara looked at Malcolm as he mulled over this point in silence, she noticed his eyes had grown distant as he stared into the lowered veil of his thoughts. Clara knew it was an act, a pantomime of contemplation done to make _her _laugh. And it worked. Clara giggled.

"That sounds fair enough," Malcolm conceded with a little nod. Suddenly, he drew himself up straight in the chair, peering at you with a curious frown. "You don't already have one made, do you, Clara?"

"I have about an even dozen stowed away in the attic, I think," she said, frowning as she ticked her eyes up to the ceiling, pretending to think. "I believe they're next to the blackmail boxes you've been saving all these years."

"Evidence boxes," Malcolm corrected gently.

Clara leaned in close enough to Malcolm's face so that their noses touched. "That sounds worse," she said. "Even though it is true."

Malcolm moved one hand off Clara's back to take hold of her wrist. His fingers were long enough that they could curl completely around her arm in a pale, thin manacle – but no, that was the wrong word. Manacle suggested prison, which suggested confinement, suffocation – none of those words fit. Clara always felt safe whenever Malcolm touched her, far more so than at the hands of any other man.

"True things always sound worse than the made up parts," Malcolm said. "Either that or they're far too fucking boring to print, and thank Christ for that."

Clara leaned her head against Malcolm's as he turned to peer down at his mobile again. It had lit up, a silent demand for his attention, but he made no move for it. Clara looped her other arm around the front of Malcolm's neck, hugging him in a loose hug and slumping down where they sat. Malcolm's body gave a series of light shifts to accommodate Clara and her warmth, like a moth singing his wings on the flame.

"A local hero and a real human being," she muttered, staring into the lace curtains that swayed over the window. "That's my husband."

Malcolm's hand froze on Clara's back. The hand that clung limply to her wrist suddenly tightened, the fingers pressing down to test the bone beneath the skin. It didn't hurt. Not on the surface, anyway.

"So – should I be asking why you're headed to Washington?" she continued, drawing the conversation back to a topic that had been temporarily delayed by that night's dinner. Malcolm's retreat into the office afterwards only incited Clara's need to continue the discussion, which is why she brought up the mourning and the effigies in the first place. Malcolm was always leaving, always on the move. Jokes were just a way to let Malcolm think the distance didn't hurt.

"Do I even want to know?" she asked, prodding his silence with gentle words and focused stares.

A shadow moved across Malcolm's eyes, taking his face in its hold and darkening every line with a slack, haunted expression. That was enough of an answer for Clara.

"It doesn't matter," she said at once, standing up and disentangling herself from Malcolm's hold and his borrowed warmth. "You don't have to tell me. It's fine."

Now this wasn't exactly a lie. Not totally. More like it was a delayed truth, one Clara would release at a later time when Malcolm pulled himself away from his work to allow for a proper conversation. This distance would allow her to think of a nicer way to ask the one question that cut Malcolm to the bone every time it was asked, no matter how gently it was phrased or delicately it was presented: _Why do you stay with this job if this is all it does to you? Why don't you leave?_

Clara didn't ask Malcolm this question not for a lack of nerve, but because of a certain ruinous expectation. Clara knew what his answer would be and it was bad enough imagining it. It would be a kind of death to hear him say it. Malcolm would never leave that job. Not if he thought there was some bit of good he could still do in office instead of on the outside, shouting in. It would take not a miracle to break Malcolm's spirit, but something murderous, something wretched and soul-sick. And Clara would have liked to say that she didn't want this to happen to the man she loved, but a part of her – a growing, louder part of her – really and truly wished it would, if only so he could benefit from the break.

As she left Malcolm to tend to the papers and whatever message had just come through on his mobile, Clara made a promise to herself. Knotting her fingers together, sliding her nails around the golden wedding band on her left hand, Clara squeezed her breath into a fine point, held it in her chest, and made a silent vow.

_I'll ask him when he gets back from Washington. I'll ask him directly and without hesitation, I'll just – just _say it.

Fortunately, that wasn't exactly how it happened. Clara didn't end up asking at all, but _saying._

* * *

><p>Malcolm came to bed around three in the morning that night, a new early for him. He lay at first with his back to Clara, but it took to a quick count of twenty before he changed his mind – and she made up hers.<p>

They faced each other in silence, a sliver of moonlight peeking in from the window. Clara made a cradle of her hand and leaned her head against it. The pillow crinkled beneath her elbow as she propped herself up and peered down at Malcolm, her eyes bleary with the heavy hand of sleep. Clara would hold even the sweetest dreams at bay if it meant she could look at him for a few seconds more.

"You aren't fleeing the country or anything, are you?" Clara asked.

Malcolm let out a flat laugh. "Haven't done it before," he murmured. "Don't know why I'd start now." He paused to brush aside a few strands of hair that had fallen into Clara's eyes. "Why _haven't _I done that before?" he wondered.

"Because we don't have our fake names picked out yet," she said. "Though I always thought you should go by something pretentiously grand and sinister, like some old cartoon villain."

"Why?"

"Because of your striking, prominent nose and your accent," she said, pressing her finger to the end of it, hoping it would be enough to get Malcolm to laugh again. Properly this time. "Montmorency Scarper should work just fine, I think."

"For who, a fucking Charles Dickens villain?" Malcolm asked, staring at Clara incredulously. "The sort of person who terrifies starving orphans and scares small children in graveyards?"

"Exactly," she nodded, her movements sluggish. "And I should be something plain and forgettable – Jane. Jane Brown." Clara paused. "Or Anne Dunne."

"Isn't the point of a fake name to take one that won't gain attention?" he prompted, pushing more hair out of Clara's face. "Why do I get the obvious one?"

Clara was starting to sink back down to the mattress, her body betraying her need to speak with its desire for more sleep. Clara's eyes slid shut as she answered, and her words came out slurred with the intruding influence of sleep. "Because you defy all expectations by default, Malcolm," she said, yawning quietly as she curled up closer to him. "Only you would be brave enough to live under a fake name that stood out by a mile."

A thought dawned across Malcolm's face, making his eyebrows dart up high on his forehead. "Are you actually asleep right now?" he asked.

"Half asleep," she murmured. "I always talk in my sleep when I worry about you."

Leaving him to that thought, Clara turned to face the window again and sank immediately into the waiting arms of sleep's black oblivion. Within moments, Malcolm wrapped himself around her, his arms tight around Clara's waist, his lips tracing gentle kisses back and forth across her neck and shoulder.

"Let me deal with the worries and the ulcers that come from them, yeah?" he whispered. The words slid down into Clara's ear and followed her into dreams of dark, unmapped woods. "And I have to know what the lies are before I can tell you the truth. You know that – don't you, sweetheart?"

Clara couldn't find the energy to answer, but her body had enough awareness left inside to give a little nod. This earned her another kiss just above the place where her heart felt trapped in her throat. Yes, she did know this – but she also knew that prizing the full, unvarnished truth from Malcolm was like forcing blood out of a stone. Useless. Impossible. A dream.

But one Clara wanted more than anything.

Maybe Clara didn't always directly confront Malcolm about why he stayed at Number Ten, but she had long since found a way to have him ask himself. It was a subtle game she had refined into a kind of miserable art, like a mourning widow at a loom hoping to find a way to tie herself to her love, who lay mouldering and quiet in his grave. All it took to have Malcolm retreat into the quiet howl of his thoughts was a careful sequence of tortures: silences that lasted too long, or a distance placed between the two of them on Clara's own volition. Leaving him in the office earlier that night was an example of the second. Clara's absolute last resort was to withdraw herself completely, and leave Malcolm to the grim monologue of his own inner thoughts for long, awful days at a time. But she didn't want to go that far. Clara didn't want to leave him. She loved him, Arctic heart and poisonous job and all.

It wasn't out of cruelty that Clara temporarily left Malcolm to his thoughts like this, nor was it meant to hurt him – not terribly, anyway. This influence over Malcolm was a responsibility Clara did not take lightly, nor was it a power she often liked to wield. Only when it was clear that Malcolm was spiralling and in need of a hard, sudden stop did she bother to do this. It was a cruelty meant in the end to be kind, like the crash a despairing heart makes when landing on a floor that had no hidden layers, but was itself the absolute last, the true rock bottom.

That's what Malcolm needed. A true, reliable rock bottom. He needed to break in order to _get_ a break, and loath though Clara was to consider this, she knew that if anyone could hurt him and do it with equal parts love and brutality, it would be her. It had to be her. There was no one else Malcolm loved more, and nothing else he feared to lose. Not even his job. It was the least she could do. Lick the wounds she'd helped inflict, press her lips to the bruised blooms on his heart, feeling the desperate, despairing press of the life beneath.

Clara's dreams that night of shadow-coated woods became instead a gaol's dungeon, dark and cold and the home of past and future screams. Buried deep within this stronghold was Malcolm, the happy prisoner kept in fetters of Clara's own design. The rust of his chains flecked across his wrist, ankles, and throat like sweet cinnamon, but when she pressed her lips to these battered places on his body, Clara could only taste blood.

In the dream Clara knew that this man wearing Malcolm's face, his _true_ face and not the one he showed to the public, was a man who suffered as a persistent state of existence, both of his own doing and what was inflicted back onto him. Her job as warden was not to change or cure him of this, but to witness it. Her job in the waking world as his wife didn't consist of either task – nor did it even properly exist.

Love was not a chore of any kind. To be in love, to give it, share it, bare it as you would a breast to the blade or a throat to a garrotte, was a necessary romantic condition. The root of passion – _pati_ – meant suffering, and whether it be in dreams or in reality, Clara knew in her heart that Malcolm's favourite agony came from the love she had for him. Her love was his favourite torture. How he thrived and yearned under her. But _pati _also meant to endure. And if there was one thing Clara knew Malcolm could and would do with grand finesse, it was tolerate the intolerable.

* * *

><p>Clara wasn't stupid, nor was she completely ignorant about the demands of Malcolm's job. She married the man knowing exactly what sort of secret world she was getting into, and she had thought, perhaps a bit foolishly, that she might find a way to shake him of his need for the glory of political shadow puppetry before long. Now she just wanted him to cut the damn strings himself before they strangled him.<p>

Despite Malcolm's reticence, Clara knew that something serious was going on – especially if Malcolm had to leave for America, a place he didn't often visit and was often happy to stay far from. _"Oafish and loud and ten times bigger than it fucking needs to be – and that's just the average American person, yeah? Same goes for the country." _Based on the talk Clara heard around the office the same week Malcolm said he was leaving, there were small whispers of war being passed around by Clara's more politically-inclined co-workers. Tensions in the Middle East were reaching a critical level with the United States doing what the United States did best: making a loud fuss and promising all sorts of efforts done in the name of liberty from an ill-equipped army. A worrying development, no matter how small these whispers were. And Malcolm, on behalf of the British government, was getting involved with it.

It would be far, far too silly and laughably impractical to imagine that the two of them could live their life in a closed space, protected and safe. But that's exactly what Clara wanted, and she didn't want to wait for heaven, when worms made meals of their graves, to see it happen.

* * *

><p>When Clara woke up the morning after Malcolm left, the sky looked like a bruise as dawn yawned a smear of blue and yellow into the sky. Clara wasn't ready to move just yet, the most recent distressing dream not yet gone from her mind's eye. It lingered behind, making her body cold and languid.<p>

To help ease herself back into reality, Clara examined the two golden rings on her left hand. One was far too large for Clara's finger, but the other was a perfect fit. _His and mine, together. _Malcolm always gave Clara his ring to wear when he travelled, even if he was only heading out on a short distance – from Number Ten to back home with her, for instance. If Clara wasn't awake to take it from him directly, Malcolm would leave the ring on the night-stand next to Clara's side of the bed, along with a note. On it were the same words he said each time he handed over the ring: _"Keep it safe for me, please."_

And she did. She always did. There was a promise hidden in the little golden band, a promise to guard and preserve Clara's heart's companion, to stand by and endure at his side through all turns in life. Clara swore as much and more when she married him, standing face to face, hand in hand. _"I love and pledge my all to you until the end of my days." _Clara meant to uphold that vow until her dying breath.

Malcolm's vows were more or less the same. He had added on a seemingly impossible promise to be by Clara's side through joys and sorrow, faults and fractures, all viciousness and victories of any kind. That his work demanded him to be absent from his home for far longer than either of them liked seemed to prove Malcolm's vow false – and Clara would have agreed with this bitter thought if Malcolm hadn't taken up the habit of lending her his ring. With his ring kept safe on Clara's finger, Malcolm was never far from her. Even now with all those miles and an ocean in between them, he wasn't really gone. Not as long as Clara's heart was full of love for him.

As if on cue, Clara's mobile lit up. At first she thought it was the alarm, but when she peered at the screen Clara saw that it was buzzing from a call instead. A call from Malcolm.

"Good morning, Malcolm – or good night, actually. Considering where you are. Are you ready to talk?"

"Only a little," he said. "I'm on toddler duty and can't stay away long."

Clara frowned. "Toddler duty? It's one in the morning, you can't literally be baby-sitting."

"I'm not," Malcolm said, his voice low. Clara heard a door shut and a faint buzzing from a ventilation fan. He must have gone into the bathroom. "I've got young Simon in the other room playing a little game called _Cemetery. _Make like a corpse and fester quietly, you know."

Clara laughed, flinging one arm over her eyes to block out the intruding sunlight from the window. "Brilliant. I'm sure he's having loads of fun with that."

"No, see, the problem with being the Director of Communications is that for some unknown fucking reason, every sorry bloated sack thinks he can actually _communicate _with you," Malcolm hissed, his voice just a bit nasally and grating. His head-cold hadn't passed yet, and no doubt that cross-Atlantic flights had only made him more congested and ill-tempered.

"_Can_ or _should_?" she asked.

"Both. Either. Pick one."

"I'd rather not," Clara said, fighting back a yawn. "Malcolm – why are you over there right now instead of here in bed with me?"

"The PM's sent me," he said. "I've got work to do, some... business to take care of."

Clara waited. "And that's all you have to say?"

"That's all I _can_ say," Malcolm replied, his voice strained, almost pleading.

Clara could hear the unspoken words. _Understand me, please. Please, don't argue or push me for more than I can give. Please, have faith in me. _"Of course," she said, stifling yet another yawn as she answered both Malcolm and the silent words you imagined in her head. "I understand, darling. Don't worry."

It was Malcolm's turn to wait. He listened to Clara mumble as she shifted around in bed, taking in the little sounds of Clara's life to which Malcolm paid an almost dogmatic level of attention. He heard her sigh and shuffle under the covers, murmuring to herself about the cold morning air and the bright stab of the sun. Clara liked to imagine that she was painting a decent enough narrative of a grumpy, recently woken-up wife to make him smile. Not that she would know if he were smiling. It was nice to pretend, regardless. Nice and harmless.

"Malcolm?" she asked, her voice pushing carefully into his silence. "Are you still there?"

"I'm here," he said, his voice coming through in a warm, quiet burst. "I'm still here," he repeated. And then he added on the feather-soft backs of a sigh, "I love you, Clara. You know that, yeah? I love you."

"I know you do," she said, rubbing her fingers over her eyes to drive the sleep from them. "And you know I love you too. Always."

Clara smiled as she ran the side of her thumb over both of her rings, twirling them slowly around on her finger. They caught the morning light bleeding in from the window and gleamed golden bright and triumphant, like a victory pyre.

"Good luck over there, love," she said. "Give them hell and make them wish for a god."

Malcolm laughed at that, rich and full. The kind of laugh that trails off into a soft little moan. "Oh I love when you talk biblical and bombastic to me," Malcolm purred, his voice melting into Clara's ear, making her heart leap and her head buzz.

"Well unfortunately I can't do a thing to help you with that now," Clara said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and hopping down so her feet touched the floor. Clara stood up and stretched one arm over her head, the bones in her back giving off soft, thorough pops. "I've got less happy work to do, sadly."

"Later then," Malcolm said, still laughing. "Go make herself presentable. I've got to go back and check on Simon the Science Experiment. He's been too quiet, I hope he hasn't actually fucking died."

"Although it would show some initiative on his part," she said, crossing over to the bathroom attached to the bedroom. Clara ran the palm of her free hand over the wall, flicking the light switch on. "He took the game so seriously he actually found a way to stop his heart in the process. That's impressive. Commendable."

"I'll be sure to shake hands with his corpse," Malcolm said.

Clara laughed. "Have fun with that," she said. "And Malcolm?"

"Yes, Clara?"

"Relax. _Breathe_."

* * *

><p>The next time Clara heard Malcolm's voice, he <em>was <em>breathing – hard, fast, brutally angry. Far from relaxed.

"I'm done," he snarled into the phone, the words stopping Clara's heart in a sudden, horrified clasp. "I'm fucking done."

Clara was just heading home for the day, plodding heavily down the stairs and into the lobby of her office building, when her mobile buzzed. Clara was happy to see that it was Malcolm – and then she was far from happy to _hear _from him. Not when he was like this.

"I don't suppose I should be celebrating?" she asked, clutching at her purse and drawing her shoulders up as she always did when talking to Malcolm in public, making her body into a shield. "Given that I don't know the context and you sound... quite cross, really."

"I'm done with every last fucking one of them," Malcolm said. "Setting me up to talk to a boy barely off the fucking tit – says he's there to _debrief _me. Well when's he going to make time for that, after he's had a little pat on the back so he can spit up on his fucking Armani bib?"

"Armani? On a toddler? That sounds like a waste," Clara said, reaching into her purse to fetch her car keys. "Give it to someone who can appreciate it, I say. And make sure that someone isn't still in need of a nappy."

"I'm being serious here," Malcolm cut in. "Really serious – deadly fucking serious. I'm done."

"Sure you are, Malcolm," Clara said, digging her key into the lock and opening the door.

"Do I not sound serious?" he asked, half out of breath.

"You sound like you're in the middle of running a marathon and it's making you very cross," Clara told him, twisting around in her seat to drop her purse on the floor.

Malcolm let out a sigh. "We'll talk later, yes? But you remember these words for me, sweetheart. You remember them – write them down, mark them fucking well. We'll put them all in my resignation letter."

Clara frowned. He really _did _sound serious – as well as irritable and utterly out of breath. "Do you actually want me to write this down?" she asked, twisting in her seat again to glance down at her purse. Clara had a couple pens in there, along with a few scraps of paper. The trouble was digging around to find them.

"No, forget that. Just repeat after me," Malcolm said, huffing a little as he caught his breath. "'_I, Malcolm Tucker, Bastard of Bastards, present to you, Linton Barwick, Boring Psychopath, with the edge of my sizeable cock. Now would you kindly fuck off from the edge of it? Thanks.'"_

Clara bit down hard on her lip to stop from laughing. Running the tip of her nails over her cheeks to focus on the scrapes instead of the blush that was burning its way down her face, Clara cleared her throat. "I'm – yeah, no, I'm not saying that," she stammered, red-faced and squirming. "And who the hell is Linton? Why's he getting my job?"

"Very funny," Malcolm snarled, but for a different reason this time. "We'll talk later."

"_Breathe_, Malcolm. Please."

Malcolm let out a long, knotted gasp of air – and hung up. Clara had no idea what to make of that conversation, and she wasn't sure if she was going to get any context for it. But at least Malcolm had done as he was told. At the very least he was still breathing.

* * *

><p>Malcolm called again when Clara was home, later that same day. Clara was poking desolately at her dinner, in half a mind to just bin the whole thing – the cooling plate with once-appealing leftovers now looked no longer appetizing in the slightest. Talking in her sleep wasn't the only thing Clara did when she worried. Her stomach twisted itself into unholy tangles, wrecking havoc on her appetite and her ability to be around food in general. Even just a whiff of food could send Clara spiralling, light-headed and ailing towards the most comfortable surface she could find that wouldn't betray her.<p>

Clara stared at the phone as it buzzed, not sure if she wanted to answer it. There was no way Malcolm was really done with work. There was no way he had meant a single word.

_Right?_

Clara wasn't one to waste time wondering. On the third ring she snatched up the phone, tapped where it said to answer, and said, "You didn't mean what you said earlier, did you?"

"Is that how we're going to start every conversation from now on? Abrupt statements in place of a traditional greeting?" Malcolm asked. He sounded quieter than he did when they last spoke, as if he were in a small room and fully aware of how his voice could travel back to him in the confined setting.

"I'm being serious, Malcolm. Were you?"

A minute went by in terrible silence. "It wasn't a joke," Malcolm replied, but there were more words waiting to be said. Clara could sense them building in the silence that followed after his statement, like a whirlpool whose deadly waves were lurking just a few paces ahead.

Malcolm's silences could be either a full, warm weight in which she could unfold peony-like, into a near endless, burgeoning profusion, fold after fold of herlaid out, open and bare, drawn to the surface by his heady, intoxicating silence. It bewitched Clara, this quiet, this calm. It ensnared her like a hook in the heart. And sometimes... Sometimes Malcolm's silences were like the cold few seconds of suspension before the noose tightened against the neck, snapping off the air to a narrow, pin-prick choking point. His wordless hush was a macabre lapse in sound like the moments from the last gasp of pure air and the next sputtering rasp, full of water and grief, Ophelian founts of misery.

"It wasn't a joke," Malcolm said again. "And... no, it's also not actually happening."

Clara could have cursed at him. She could have ranted, raved, raged – could have chosen silence for her own weapon against him, that agonising armour she wielded back in the lonely days before Malcolm came to be hers. He was still hers, always, even thousands of miles and an ocean and a philosophy of basic human principles apart. There was a fire in Malcolm that gave Clara's own gutted sparks life, a wrath and a vengeful, vicious fury that became enchanted passion when trained onto her. Malcolm adored Clara the way a dying man begs all the heavenly hosts not to spare him but to accept him, to cradle every unworthy tarnished sore on his heart and kiss it clean: desperate in his despair, sincere in all dire solemnity, and always, without fail, acting as if every second was the absolute last.

Malcolm didn't want what he had with Clara to end. She was sure of that much, just like she was sure he only anticipated the end out of some desire to prepare for the worst possible scenario. The more the mind geared itself for the situation it found the most intolerable, the more the body behaved as if its host's hopes had already all been betrayed. Clara was once the same way. Then Malcolm came into her life, the product of a blind date her best friend, Donna, dared her to attend. How was she to know all those years ago that Malcolm and all his love would end up being exactly what Clara needed? Every one of his kisses drew out the poison of Clara's grief, every single touch sealed shut scars that couldn't quite heal when left to Clara's own sole care. Malcolm healed her, made her better – and in turn _Clara felt _better, whole and pure, as she had been before the diagnosis, before Clara's body betrayed her.

It's not that Clara couldn't be better by herself, or that her mental health and all its care depended entirely on Malcolm's love for her. Clara knew better than to give anyone that kind of uncanny, full command of her heart. But it could not be denied that Clara's life with Malcolm was far better, more rich and deep than it had ever been when she was battling through life alone. The both of them had learned to be weak and strong with each other in equal, supporting turns – which is why Clara knew exactly what words to say to cut him to the quick.

"I expected as much from you, Malcolm," Clara said. It wasn't a kind statement, nor was it meant to be blindly cruel. She was simply speaking the truth.

"That's fair, I suppose," he replied, his voice hushed, his words wet – not with tears nor with the lingering effects of his head-cold, but the grief of a heart that, like Ophelia, must drown to defend from its own destroying self. "I'll be home to see you soon, if that's any consolation. At the airport now."

"It is some consolation, actually."

"Good," he said.

"I'll wait up for you," Clara said. She expected Malcolm to plead against this, as he often did when she sacrificed comforts for him, but his answer surprised her.

"Yes, please do," he murmured. "I want to see you. I need – " he paused. Clara heard a sigh, some small, strangled release of wordless air that brought no relief. "I need _you_, Clara," he finished, his voice the mourning hymn of a doomed man.

Clara's heart felt cracked down to its roots, split open and bitterly bared. "I'm here, Malcolm. I'm always here for you," she said. "You know that, right? Travel safe. _Breathe_."

"I'm _trying_," Clara heard him say.

They both waited in silence for the other to hang up first. It ended up being her.

* * *

><p>Clara held the phone in her left hand for the rest of the night until Malcolm came home, like a talisman that could guide him back safe.<p>

* * *

><p>That night Clara entered her bed with her mouth buried beneath her left hand, the golden rings pressed against her lips in a cold kiss. Clara wanted to see if she could take in the vows woven into their perfect, unending shapes, wanted to know if the words hidden within could put a weight on Clara's tongue that offered the same soul-curing bliss as the sacrament. Was it blasphemy to wish for this? Her love for Malcolm often made Clara feel like a heretic, idolatrous and adoring, profane and profound, and yet there was no room in Clara's heart for regret. It was too full of love for him, just as his pricked itself on every one of passion's thorns for her.<p>

Clara fell into bed dreaming that she lay within a burning ring of golden fire, with all the voices of the world shrieking havoc and hell and war, an almighty cacophony. Clara knew that there was only one force alive that could preserve her from a pyre's wrath and stop her from being a feast for smoke and ash. He arrived clad in shadows and soot, having burned himself just for the hope of reaching her.

When Clara's dark saviour smiled, his flesh was pulled so thin across his face that it seemed a skull was grinning down at her. But no. There was life in the burning man yet, and all this life he offered up as tribute to awaken her, to pull her free and safe from the choking fires.

"_I love and pledge my all to you until the end of my days," _the burning man said, wrenching Clara up from the funeral pyre and holding her tight in his thin arms.

Clara woke up from that dream with the moon peeking in through the window, illuminating the altar that was her half empty bed. Fortunately Clara's eyes opened just in time to see Malcolm crawling across the mattress towards her, his skeletal body as bare as a man born and stripped anew. Without saying a word Clara opened her arms to hold him, to have him, love and lock him close. He said nothing as well, but Clara could taste the thousand hushed whispers of gratitude on his lips as he kissed her.

As Clara twisted and rose above Malcolm, riding him up to and beyond the point of pleasure again and again and again – a man in dire need of love and life and the glory of each has no time to waste on refractory periods, it would seem – she made sure to stay focused on Malcolm's eyes. His gaze burned like a martyr moments from being consumed in a traitorous blaze, but he was looking at her as if she were the one pure proof of anything divine.

_Until the end of my days. _The wedding vow and the dream words echoed inside Clara's head. "Do you need me? Still?" she heard herself gasp.

"I always need you," he moaned. "Always."

"You promise?"

"I do."

Clara's lips clung to Malcolm's, delivering unto his pale, eager mouth a fury of breathless kisses. "Leave. Leave the job, Malcolm. _Please_. Before it kills you. Before it breaks you, before you have nothing left but your heart and then they come for that, too."

"Lost all that ages ago," Malcolm said, still inside Clara, filling and stretching, giving her all that could be spared of his love and the ache that his every other thought became. Malcolm's hands held tighter to Clara's hips, fingers choking the skin so he could feel the tremor of her bones as she came. "I lost all that – and everything else. Except for whatever part of me you keep safe."

"That's not true," she whispered when she could find words again. Malcolm wasn't done yet, and so she tightened her knees on either side of Malcolm's hips and shifted, rolling until she was on her back and Malcolm was above her, pushing in deep. "That's not true – because I have all of you. Remember?"

Clara lifted up Malcolm's left hand and slid his wedding band back on his ring finger again. He moaned louder, longer. Clara could feel him shuddering. He was close, so close.

She continued. "Every part of me adores and holds safe every part of you. Remember? '_I love and pledge my all to you until the end of my days.'"_

"I remember," Malcolm said after he came, sliding his right hand up Clara's back, locking his fingers in her hair, and wrenched Clara up to crush her lips in his hungriest kiss yet. "I remember, I do," he said again, once his mouth was released from hers. Malcolm moved his teeth against Clara's throat as he bent his head lower, moving down her body, his lips seeking her heart and the breast above.

Third time was the charm. "I remember, love. I do – I swear."

The two of them were married again that night. Once more before dawn, Clara rode Malcolm hard like a woman chasing down hell, determined to get her dead love's life back where it belonged: at home in his body, in his blood, and locked within his furiously beating heart.

United and pledged together again, Clara pulled from Malcolm one last vow before the blood red break of dawn cracked across the sky and called the world to wake. "When you're finished with the PM's business, you come straight back home to me and you stay here," she said. "You stay right where I can keep you. Do you understand me?"

"I do, yes."

Clara studied Malcolm quietly. "Do you have anything to say against that?"

"I do – but it won't last."

Clara cradled Malcolm's face in her hands, stroking the worry lines on his forehead and the little prongs of crow's feet around his eyes. Her fingertips traced the shape of his lips, which kept moving up in little pecks to kiss her skin. "You're free when you're with me," Clara said, speaking as much about herself as she was to Malcolm. "You're better, and much better off. But you have to give up that job. I won't stand for anything else, not anymore. You have to give in – you have to _let go_, Malcolm. Don't let them rule you anymore."

"And let you do that instead?" he asked. He didn't sound entirely averse to the notion.

Clara let him taste her lips. "We can take turns," she promised. "Give and take. Push and pull. Rule and be ruled. But that can only happen once you resign. I can't share you anymore, Malcolm. I won't."

"You don't have to," he whispered, his lips exploring Clara's for one last, long kiss before the day demanded he leave their bed. "You won't share me anymore, because I'm through. I'm done with it, Clara."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"I am. I promise you." Malcolm kissed her again, as if a kiss alone could make his words come true.

But Clara knew better than that.

* * *

><p>Clara wouldn't know that Malcolm's kiss and words proved true until the world cracked open three days later, spewing war and fury and news media battalions. No sooner had war been declared and the world leaders lumbered about, trying to figure out where they stood, did Malcolm quietly resign from his position as Director of Communications. He sent the resignation off in an email attachment with just a few quick taps of his thumb against the keypad on his Blackberry, as if it were a decision no more arduous than a simple text.<p>

Clara would learn later that Malcolm's last official duty was to welcome the new minister for International Development – "A nice, quiet woman with fucking absurd amounts of hair." It was quite a difference from tricking the UN into voting in support of a war based on an ambitiously awful paper against military force in the first place – but again, this is something she would learn later.

When Clara left work that day – a Friday, she would never forget that day; good day, Fridays – to find a cab waiting for her out front. Malcolm was inside.

Catching sight of Clara and her wide, shocked stare, Malcolm opened the door and waited for her to join him, his eyes glinting like a saint with one last prayer to keep back despair. The closer Clara got to the car, the more it became clear that his eyes were full of her. _Who else?_

"Are we going somewhere?" she asked.

"On our honeymoon," Malcolm said. "Never did get a proper one when we were first married, but now's our chance."

"Why?

"Well, seeing as I have no other current occupation," he began, but Clara cut him off.

"You haven't – "

"I did. Yes."

Clara's heart rose up in her throat, pounding all the words she wanted to say into a fine dust. After a moment, Clara gathered her nerve and tried again. "But what about my things?" It was a silly question to ask in comparison to the myriad of other questions she might have thrown his way, but she couldn't take it back after it was said.

Malcolm gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. "All packed in the back," he said. He looked Clara over carefully, noticing that she still hadn't moved. Malcolm leaned over the empty space of the seat Clara was meant to occupy and held out his hand for her to take.

"Will you come with me?" he asked.

Without thinking twice, Clara took his hand and squeezed it tight. "Always," she promised. "Yes."


	18. The One Who Hides the Damage Done

**Notes: **This is set a few weeks after the events of Chapters 12 and 13, when Malcolm met Clara's ex, John Smith. In those weeks they've not only gone on that holiday to meet his mother, they have also gotten married - which is the product for an upcoming chapter, so you haven't missed anything yet.

I also took some liberty and invented a name for Clara's grandmother, since I couldn't find one online (?), and it got a bit cumbersome to keep referring to her as "gran".

Lastly, I've started posting this fic on AO3 (Archive Of Our Own), under the title "In All Weathers." My username is the same, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. I did this as the only so far suitable option to have people save the fic. AO3 has a handy feature allowing such a thing. I know some of you expressed interest in keeping it before it gets pulled - well, here's your chance~

Cheers. Thanks in advance for reading.

* * *

><p><strong>The One Who Hides the Damage Done<strong>

Clara very much thought that visiting Malcolm's mother, even with his sister and niece as surprise guest entrants, had been significantly less stressful than this little Sunday trip up to the Oswalds' would undoubtedly prove itself to be. It helped that visiting the Tuckers, what remained of them and what little could be gathered for a weekend trip, had been felt much more like a proper holiday, a way to get away from the chillingly airless, gasping atmosphere of London and their lives inside it. It had also helped that for a blissful stretch of almost forty-eight hours, Clara had been subjected to the rich charm of Glaswegian accents and more shortbread than she had ever encountered in her life.

She would not have nearly the same level of luck and pleasantness when heading to see her family. It was sure to be a bone-wearying chore, the likes of which Clara had been glad to put behind her, and Malcolm had yet to experience.

"That's a rather bleak assumption," Malcolm said, peering down at her in the back of the taxi. The sky as a swollen, awful grey, the kind that promised rain in one quarter - the part they were heading towards - and showed the setting sun in the other section. The section they were leaving behind. "And it's a poor one at that. What d'you think I fucking get up to all day?"

_Things that make you wake up yelling from imaginary arguments_, Clara wanted to say, but didn't. She would bring that sad fact up at another time, when they weren't hurtling towards their doom in the form of a family dinner. "Just... please, trust me on this, Malc," she argued, one hand up, her temper short, and her nerves worn down to a miserable, pitiful stub of patience. "You don't know my family. Not like I do - obviously."

"Clara, I do trust you," Malcolm said, his voice low, intending to soothe every tattered edge of her nerves. He ran a hand absently across the back of her shoulders, drawing her across the joined seating so they could sit side by side with no space in between. "And no, I don't know your family - at least, I don't know them beyond your panicky debriefings and little fetches of back-story."

Clara let herself laugh just a little bit. Just once. One laugh couldn't hurt, but it certainly didn't relax her, either. "Debriefings... I like that. Makes tonight sound like a battle strategy or something," she said, musing softly to herself. "And we are absolutely walking into a minefield here."

"I thought it was a dinner."

"It's both," Clara said, nodding once before she leaned her head against Malcolm's shoulder and let it rest on the long, flat surface. "With my family it is definitely both."

Glancing up at Malcolm in the silence that followed, Clara noted his patient, almost indulgent smile as he took in her words and gave back only his attention in return. Nice of him not to pick apart what she said, or to argue against it on some level. Nice of him not to compare it to his own experiences with such combative zones, either the one constantly seething on Downing Street or the proper, living, wretched thing he had found himself visiting in the past. Purely on accident, he had assured her. But the world, as Malcolm had said, was always brandishing and balancing on the edge of a knife, always hungry for blood on grand and smaller scales be it the actual thing or just someone's source of personal, deep-rooted shame as shared on Twitter. From the most miserable crawling insect to the gloating well-provisioned government, life could be counted on to be chomping at the bit to destroy _something. _

And right now, Clara wanted to destroy that handsome, languishing smile on her husband's face. How dare he look that relaxed. Didn't he know what they were getting into? Couldn't he _guess_?

"Stop smiling," she said, wishing she could take hold of Malcolm's face and fix its expression to match her own. "We're not going there to have fun, Malcolm. We're going there to put on a show and then get the hell out as fast as we can."

The pendulum of Clara's mood swung from despairing agony to a kind of smothering, aggressive command of every square millimetre of her body. She repeated tonight's rules quietly to herself. _No scowling and no fretting, worried looks of any kind. Not tonight. No clenched jaws, no knitted brows - nothing that makes you look as sick as you feel. _The only expression Clara would accept of herself tonight was a look of peaceful, composed grace, like an ambassador stranded in a country that just declared war on her homeland. It was exactly how she felt, going back to see her family after spending the past several weeks locked up in the world she and Malcolm had created together. She was venturing out of that safety, leaving behind that loving, tender security newly found in his house - _ours now, we share it_ - to head back under a roof and a collection of four walls she had not seen since she was in university. As such, Clara was predictably terrified.

It wasn't as if she hadn't seen her family since she was a student. She just hadn't been back to the home she'd grown up in, and that was largely by choice. Holiday visits were usually held at her Gran's house outside of London mostly for its size - not that there were many Oswalds to accommodate, but they liked to put as much space in between each other as one house could provide, only venturing into each other's company for meals or the rare hallway encounter. These customary appearances, brief though they were, required a full week's preparation before Clara felt she could manage them. The bedroom wall of her flat would be peppered with post-it notes full of pep talks - _You can do this! - _a small list of dos and don'ts - _Do listen quietly while Dad talks about golf; do _not _make eye contact with Linda for longer than it takes to blink -_ designed to prepare Clara for meeting her family gain.

She never saved these notes, never thought to save them, and so every few weeks Clara would have to write out each little yellow square of wisdom whenever the holidays arrived. Her flatmates put up decorations, Clara wrote battle plans.

Just about the only blood relative Clara could tolerate being around was her grandmother, but as both women got older their weekly Sunday lunches turned more into "come around when you remember it" run-ins. Beyond that, Clara had walled her heart to all invading ideas of what was _right _and _good _and _expected _of her as a member of the Oswald family. Just because they were a technical family did not mean they were one in practice, and it was the deed that mattered more than the definition.

Clara far from fit the bill of a traditional or even a remotely conservative person - her university years and her marriage to both of Malcolm's character and age were a testament to that - but she did have this one sticking point off which she could not, would not budge. The loss of her mother had ripped out an integral part of the Oswalds home and heart, a wound which had never properly healed as far as Clara was concerned. Jagged and raw was this sad, empty scar, taking on the distinct shape of Eleanor – _Ellie_, always Ellie, even on her grave. Tall, long-limbed, with dark eyes like autumn gold and a smile as shy as it was kind, Ellie did not haunt the Oswald home as much as she did its inhabitants, and yet none was so plagued as her husband. Dave put forth a valiant effort to keep himself whole, smiled and worked and went through all the motions of a widower rebuilding himself from the wreckage, but he had last an irretrievable part of himself when Ellie was left in her grave. The coffin didn't just belong to her, but it was his own resting place, too.

"That wasn't the worst part, though," Clara said, relaying this all to Malcolm in a digestible form as she clung to his hand. His other arm was still slung around her back, stroking her left shoulder in a slow, steady caress. "The absolute worst part was he didn't even give up. Not in the way most people do when someone they love dies. He just... stopped, like all the life in him had run out with her. He wasn't angry, he wasn't sad, wasn't broken, he just... wasn't."

Clara closed her eyes. "He was gone," she continued, her voice strained and thin like a guitar string newly plucked. "Mum died and then a part of Dad followed her too. I lost them both, but Dad was still there. Technically."

Malcolm's hand tightened around Clara's cold, small fingers. Her voice warbled like a theremin, but a broken one, a reverse one, the kind that responds not to the lack of a touch but the warmth of one. Only Malcolm could coax the truth from her like this, could play her pain in all its rude, unpolished chords and scales. Out of love and respect for this process, Clara carried on speaking even though every word made her crack along the bone-thin seams.

"Gran came to live with us for a while. She said it was to help Dad with me, but I knew better that. She did it for Dad, to make sure he didn't fall apart on me."

"Did it help?" Malcolm asked, quiet and attentive.

Clara removed her head from his shoulder and shifted, putting space between them again. She leaned her head against the window, the frosty glass like winter's kiss on her skin. The chill helped with the heated sting that came along with her thoughts. Remembering was kinder than thinking, in Clara's opinion. Memories didn't carry the same grim weight as a present, active thought. But Clara was always thinking, couldn't _stop _thinking, especially on things long gone and dead and the people along with them, and so her memories were just as vivid as they were vicious, with no chance to rest.

She knew that Malcolm was the same, that his mind was always active, alert, and ever in agony for it. Clara loved him for this, in the way two survivors nee victims could love each other for knowing just how deep a wound could go, and being able to trace the faults, fractures, and fury of particular aches.

"Clara?" With his arm now removed from her back, he reached out with that hand now, offering his own instead of taking hers.

Clara stared out the window at the little flecks of rain that started to trickle from the sky. Not quite a proper rain, yet nowhere near a downpour thankfully. "It might have worked," she said, pushing away from the window and settling down against Malcolm again. "He brought Linda home soon after Gran moved in – but that was probably a coincidence. I'd like to think it was. Dad's not aggressive enough to give slights like that."

She took Malcolm's hand once again. His lips were in her hair, kissing the glossy flat strands. "Gran left without needing to be asked, and I followed soon after. Well, I didn't _leave _ but I didn't spend much time at home either. It was that age, you know. ' _Anywhere but here's where I want to be home.' _But Linda's earned her share of the blame, too."

"Where did you go?" Malcolm wondered, his voice a warm hum above her ear.

"Amy's and Rory's now and then. Amy was usually _with _Rory, so they were a sort of packaged deal. But I knew that I couldn't always be the third wheel, so back then I, er... I stayed at John's mostly," Clara said, squeezing Malcolm's hand before he could let go of her. She tried not to bring up the name much since the appointment some weeks back, not because Malcolm didn't wish to discuss him, but because she found herself tripping over the name. It felt awkward in her mouth, like a pill she could no longer stomach and instead let melt into bitter waste on her tongue.

"The doctor?" Malcolm asked, stroking the side of Clara's hand with his thumb.

She nodded. "His aunt was like a sister to my mum – I even grew up calling her auntie. It was all very tragic when I found out the truth, but I recovered eventually. John helped with that too."

_John. _ John was a dream, just a dream, the kind you fall into when the noise in your brain takes over its capacity to sort it out. John was the rush of liquor on a tongue eager for fun. _A moment, just a moment, not a destination. _ Clara closed her eyes again, not to remember but to imagine these days and faces and the whirl of colour and heat and happiness contained within them. _Just a moment, a moment of happiness, not a lasting state of it._

"I don't want to go home, Malcolm," she said, getting to the bare, simple truth at last.

"I know, Clara. … I know."

She took a breath. "So why are we going there again? Remind me. I know I told you. Now say it back to me."

It wasn't that Clara couldn't be brave without Malcolm, but the sound of his voice and the fury of his heart had a way of reminding her that there was strength buried inside her as well. Dread wasn't the only thing she had in spades to spare, but she had a courage, leonine and fierce, that was a source not tapped nearly as often as its richness deserved.

Malcolm's lips were on Clara's cheeks in a trice, his hand no longer holding onto her own but now combing through her hair, pulling her head slowly, softly back. "Kill two birds with the same well-thrown stone," he said. "You're overdue in seeing them and they're due to actually see _me – _not that I agree with that last part," he added in a quick undertone, unable to stop himself. "It means absolute fuck all to me if they know who I am, but – "

"Malcolm..." Clara's voice was a firm warning.

"Stick to the script, don't fluff the part, yeah, got it," he said. He kissed her cheek again, his lips moving over her skin in a caress that slid like silk. "Where was I?"

"You were explaining why it's time my family met you."

"Right. You want to get the little tete-a-fucking-tete out of the way while it's still early on, so they can't argue later that you kept us from them." Malcolm paused and Clara knew he was looking down at her left hand and the conspicuously empty ring finger there. They both decided not to let her family know about the wedding, brief though that wedding had been, when they had yet to know Malcolm as a boyfriend. Neither one felt much like putting up with either a lecture or silent, side-ways stares.

Malcolm continued. "And if you _are _withholding something from them – and you are, make no mistake about that, but that's not a judgement call, you know, it's a commendation – "

"_Malcolm_."

" – then you're only doing it because you want to keep us safe. Or was it secret?"

"It was both." Clara nodded, looking down at her hands and the empty ring finger as well. It felt so bare and small without the usual band of gold there. Her shorn and chewed-on nails were even more pitiful now that she didn't have the ring to distract from them, though for tonight's dinner Clara had attempted to file her nails into more pleasing shapes. Crookedly filed crescents pulled at the thin gnarled back of Malcolm's hand just as the cab made the last turn before their destination, her small fingers seeking the warm support of his touch once more.

It was hers within seconds. It was always hers.

"Thank you, Malcolm."

He held her hand tighter and said nothing.

* * *

><p>"Dear me, aren't you old."<p>

This, of course, was said by Linda the instant she opened the door and looked up to see Malcolm. No _hello_ , no _nice to see you_ – nothing but an insult from the get go.

A muscle below of Clara's left eye twitched as she watched Linda lift up her hand not to shake Malcolm's but to take a long, judgemental swig from her drink. She slid aside in the doorway without another word and let them pass by, headed into the front room. Linda's eyes glittered as she looked Malcolm up and down as he entered. It was with another twitching muscle that Clara noticed the bitter, satisfied sort of pleasure that made her step-mother's watery eyes seem momentarily brighter.

To his credit, Malcolm didn't react to this remark. He didn't react visibly to Linda at all it seemed, but Clara knew there was a veritable storm of scalding, seething rage burning up in the furnace of his gut, his second-hand knowledge of his mother-in-law used for his temper's kindling. His smile was pinned to his mouth like nails driven into thin, hungry skin. It made his face into a hard ugly expression that he usually reserved for ministers, journalists, press people of all kinds, and sometimes the occasional small child.

"You must be Linda," Malcolm said as he grinned, all teeth and no warmth.

"Heard of me, have you?"

"There were a few warnings, yes," Malcolm replied. And that was all he would say to her, even if Clara's father had just chosen that moment to enter the room. Malcolm's smile became much more polite as he introduced himself to his father-in-law, his eyes sparkling with a subdued, jovial gleam.

"Pleased to meet you, Malcolm," Mr. Oswald said as he offered his hand. Linda rolled her eyes in a slow drawl that went unnoticed by her husband. "I'm David – but I'm sure Clara's said as much. Have you met – oh, you have. I see." He paused. "Now Linda, there's no need to leave," he argued gently, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Without paying attention to a single word her husband said, Linda strolled out of the room after she replaced her glass of wine with the house wireless phone. She didn't look twice at the people eyeing her, and as such she missed their mixed expressions of wariness, relief, and flat out distaste. The room grew warmer in Linda's absence, but the silence was a choking weight, like a heavy dead hand frozen stiff and limp on the backs of everyone present.

Clara linked her arm through Malcolm's and smiled at her father. "I forgot that Linda has a set length of time before she has to physically remove herself from my presence," she said, her voice too bright, too cheerful, clashing completely with the words that spilled from her pale, painted mouth.

"Be nice, Clara," Mr. Oswald said, his voice mechanic, automatic. Clara's face fell rather than twitched to hear it. "Dinner's about ready, by the way. You're just in time. It's uncanny, really. Clearly you didn't get that from me. That'll be her mum – I mean, Ellie. I mean..."

When Mr. Oswald laughed he sounded like the way a car's windscreen glass looks when smashed in a head-on collision. Not exactly broken, but something far worse: punctured and ruptured. Even Malcolm, unaccustomed to the sound or to this hollowed man – with whom he clearly shared a graduating year if not a birth year – felt a strange, undeniable pity.

Clara's hand tightened on Malcolm's sleeve, a plea made in bent bones and strained skin. "Let's hang our coats up, yeah?" she said, tugging on his arm until he followed her out of the room and into the hall that led to the back stretch of the house.

The hall was lit only by the pale slanted squares of weak grey sunlight just barely passing through the windows of the rooms that lined the corridor – a guest room, a bathroom, something that could have been an office if it had any furniture. Clara came to a stop in front of a small brass handle that jutted out from the plain white wall, snatching the little bit of metal in her hand. Everything in the hall was white, the sort of crisp, pure absence of colour that almost demands to be stained. It made Clara nervous, these walls – no pictures hung on them, nor were they decorated by any little bits of art that might suggest the characters of the people who called this house a home. In a sort of unintended contrast, the walls of hers and Malcolm's home were heavily occupied by framed signs of life of all kinds, silly bits of art or photographs, "came with the frame" family and friends for which they invented long-winded, highly ridiculous life stories when they were bored and nights were long and their spirits were buoyant.

A closet was hidden in a small bit of space just across from the first floor bathroom, more of a wash closet than anything. The second floor's was much larger and, judging by the sound of muted laughter and heavy pacing, where Linda was currently roosting, having climbed the narrow stairs at the end of the hall to get there. Clara groped for the light switch hidden inside the narrow sliver of closet and tore the coat off her back like it was the skin of a hated, thrashing thing. Her teeth were bared, her hands shaking, and she trembled with a violence that could scream if her heart had a mouth of its own. When Clara turned to relieve Malcolm of his own coat, having already hung up her own next to the empty plastic preserve usually zipped up around wedding dresses, she walked right into his grasp and waiting kiss.

Holding Clara's face gently between two long large hands, Malcolm bent his head and pressed another kiss to the little knotted crease on Clara's forehead, then bent lower still to kiss the fold on the bridge of her nose. He breathed in slowly through his lips, a little gasp of air done in near silence as if to draw out the worry and wrath from Clara's skin up into the roots of his, where it had a head start home thanks to all his years in politics. It was just about the only thing he could thank those years for, come to think of it.

Malcolm was not a man to fuss, would much rather pound all problems into a psychological submission than pore over them like rare gold and gems, but for Clara he made a certain exception. For Clara alone he quietly laboured lovingly over her and all her jagged, gnarled nerves, her unease that one day might just manifest itself as an ulcer or something far worse, something permanent and deeply buried, incurable but not beyond treating.

Clara curled her fingers around Malcolm's wrists as he moved his lips back up to her forehead, kissing it once again now that it was free from folds and worries and other pensive lines of all kinds. Would he ever stop touching her like this? Gentle, loving, a way to say what words could not quite express? She hoped not. She wanted to think not too, but there was something getting in the way of that faith turning into a fact.

"Don't listen to Linda. She isn't happy unless she's making someone else miserable."

"As one would expect of a woman who uses vinegar in her routine fucking dialysis," Malcolm said, stroking Clara's face gently as he held it between his hands.

She tilted her head back to peer at him, the light leaking out from the closet making his eyes seem all the brighter, like gleaming shards of ice beneath the recently cut sweep of his greying hair. In the blissful, albeit brief time Clara had known him, Malcolm's brown had faded beautifully into a kind of dull, dim shine that Clara rather liked studying as they lay together in bed, his head resting on her chest and her fingers pushing through the short crop of hair she knew he'd inherited off his father. Malcolm's mother had given him her eyes and nose, but the hair was all her husband's doing.

"Come on," Clara said, unhooking her fingers to give Malcolm's chest a flat-handed pat. "Off with the coat and into the kitchen. Might as well pass the sitting room on our way in. Gran's probably there reading."

As it turned out, her grandmother _ wasn't _there - but someone else was.

* * *

><p>"Sarah Jane?" The familiar dark hair and focused, clear eyes made Clara stop dead as she entered the room.<p>

Sarah Jane stood up from the sofa, closing the book she had been reading with a sharp sudden snap. She spared Malcolm a look that lasted long enough to indicate an introduction was unnecessary, but an explanation would be bloody welcome, before she set her warm eyes on Clara.

"Surprise!" she said, grinning. "So good to see you again. It's been ages, hasn't it?"

Clara took Sarah Jane's hands when she was offered them, then found herself pulled into a warm, back-cracking hug that made her sway. "Since - graduation, I think?" she choked, digging her chin into Sarah Jane's shoulder as they embraced.

"It's - well. Er, yes. Hello again." Her voice had gone hysterically high again, like a bird singing madly as it tore itself to bones and bloody feathers by beating against the bars of its cage.

"And you must be Malcolm." Sarah Jane held out her hand after Clara broke off and took a step back. Her eyes searched Malcolm's face without indicating a hint of the thoughts at work behind her own.

In response to his name uttered in this tone, which belied Sarah Jane's polite mask and was laced clear through like a needle dipped in venom, Malcolm's smile slipped too far up one edge of his face, becoming a smirk. The sickle-wide arch made him look mocking and cruel. Luckily his own tone saved him; when he spoke his voice gentle, curious. "You're the one with the nephew, yes? John, was it?" he asked. "Brilliant lad, a real dab hand at his craft. You must be proud."

Sarah Jane's lips pressed into a line so thin her mouth almost seemed to vanish from her face. "John did mention you, but that's not how I know you," she said.

Malcolm went immediately cold and still. The tension in the air became palpable, like a hand curling into a fist. It was as if a candle had been snuffed out - and then thrown violently against a wall, creating a splatter of wax. He dropped Sarah Jane's hand at once and continued to gaze at her down the length of his nose, his expression dark with a cloud that hid his thoughts, made veils and dust of his eyes.

Clara rounded on Sarah Jane, her voice hoarse. "Please don't say anything," she whispered. "Not to Dad. Or Linda. Or Gran - that is... I _ hope _you haven't said anything to any of them already." She gripped the older woman's arms in a grasp like iron. So why was Clara the one who felt trapped and caught? "You didn't, right? Yes?"

"I didn't, no."

Clara searched Sarah Jane's eyes with the sort of precision only an anxious heart could master. "Right. One more question, then. Are you lying to make me feel better?"

It was both a tremendous relief and then an awful slug of guilt did Clara see Sarah Jane look offended at this remark. Relief because Clara knew she had been speaking the truth - guilt because Clara had to question the truth at all.

"No! Now honestly, Clara, you certainly know me better than to think I would put a _ spin _on something like that," Sarah Jane said.

Her words only made Clara hold on tighter. Not in a plea, not the way she had taken Malcolm's hand back in the cab, but at a silent sort of insistence. _ Keep being honest, please, don't start lying to me now. _"And since we're on the subject of who knows who better," Clara said, "You will have no trouble agreeing with me when I say that of the people present in this room, I'm the only one who can say she knows Malcolm best." She paused for breath. "Including himself," she added.

Malcolm frowned. "Sorry?" he asked, the question caught in a half-formed laugh.

"Hush," Clara told him, not looking at him.

Sarah Jane's lips twitched into the merest hint of a smile, but it never came. That was good enough for Clara though. A hint of a smile was better than the mask she had been showing. But then Sarah Jane smiled, and all Clara's hopes seemed to dash away in that little rush of air.

"I'm not here to interrogate you on your choices in – in _boyfriends_, Clara," she began, stumbling over the word as if it were a divot in the road. "I'm only here because your gran invited me when I saw her last week for lunch. And of course I said agreed to drop by. I wasn't about to pass up the chance to catch up with old friends – and Linda," she added as a clear afterthought.

Clara smiled and let go of Sarah Jane's arms, pulling her in for another hug instead. "Let me do the talking tonight. About Malcolm, I mean. Forget everything you think you've heard about him before now and remember him exactly as I say from here on. Have you got that?"

Sarah Jane shook with silent laughter. "Might I express just a _ fraction _ of concern at that phrasing, Clara?" she asked.

"You just have, so I wouldn't bother going much further," Clara said, letting go and stepping back so that she stood side by side with Malcolm. His arm moved through hers this time, coiling around Clara's shorter reach until he found her hand and in a slow, graceful fold they wove their fingers together. Emboldened by the contact, Clara pushed her shoulders back, lifted her chin a fraction higher than it usually was, and let Sarah Jane look them over in silent, somewhat reluctant acceptance.

"Well you make an uncommonly fine couple, I will say that much," Sarah Jane said, folded her arms over her chest and smiling at Clara.

"Thank you," Clara said.

"And thanks for holding back the obvious cradle-robbing crypt-keeping comments," Malcolm added, grinning without showing his teeth. He looked far more handsome this way; Clara's heart stuttered as she turned to look up at him.

"I wasn't thinking that at all," Sarah Jane replied, clearly puzzled. She looked at Clara for clarification.

"Linda gave Malcolm a typical Linda reception at the door earlier," Clara said. "And I think Dad blanched a bit at the sight of him. I can't be sure but he just might have been expecting a man closer to my age than this."

"Ah," Sarah Jane said, pressing her lips down tight again in just such a way that it hid what she wanted to add next.

Silence passed, breaking the tension as if a fever were breaking up and drifting away, taking the pervasive influence of its illness with it. Though Malcolm couldn't exactly be _ relaxed _ in Sarah Jane's presence, he did put up a noble, obvious effort. It was obvious to all present in the room that his distrust, and at times burning vitriol, for members of the press was too deeply embedded to undo for a single evening – even if Sarah Jane _ did _repeatedly stress that her columns were all about advances in modern science and had very little to do with politics.

"Every bit of printed word can trace its fucking entrails back to politics, Mrs. Smith," Malcolm said, his voice still pleasant despite the colourful language that had seeped in at last. "There's an agenda behind everything, from the fringe bits of wasted space at the bottom of one page to those op-ed reader write in landscapes of mental decay."

"And you would certainly know that better than either of us, Malcolm," Sarah Jane replied – not unkindly, but her voice was far from warm as well. She moved her eyes on to Clara after a long, uncomfortable pause. "Margaret's in the kitchen," she said, referring to Clara's grandmother. "Said something about a... pudding recipe that fell behind the cabinets?"

Clara tried to laugh but couldn't. "It slipped down there by accident years ago," she said for Malcolm's benefit, though he hadn't said a word. Perhaps he was too busy yelling silently at Sarah Jane to trust himself to speak just yet. "She tries to dig it out each time she visits. I think it's moved about a foot since she started back in 1996."

An idea struck Clara as she finished this statement, and with a bright, dazzling smile fixed in place she turned to peer up at Malcolm. "Well? Go in there and help. Put those knobby fingers of yours to use. And say hello while you're at it. That's always nice."

Malcolm knew this was just an excuse to get him out of the room and put a bit of breathing distance between him and Sarah Jane. He also knew he would much rather spend time with a potentially doddering old lady, digging around inside bits of dust and kitchen crumbs since she was either too arthritic or too absent-headed to manage it herself, than stand for one more second in the company of a journalist.

"It's just next door," Clara said, taking advantage of his amicable silence and pushing her hands flat on his chest to nudge him out of the room. "Follow the smells, you'll get there in the end."

Malcolm left the room without saying a word, a rarity for him. He did, however, leave with a grin that made Clara's heart trip and smack hard against her ribs, knocking her out of sorts for a few seconds. This didn't escape Sarah Jane's notice. Not in the slightest.

"Clara, may I ask you a question?" she said once they were alone. Her voice was like cold water thrown over the little spark of Clara's happiness.

Clara steeled herself for whatever it was Sarah Jane had to say next. She studied the older woman quickly, her eyes ticking back and forth over the gentle but admirably composed face. How often had Clara wished that she could be her true aunt? How often had she also wished that Sarah Jane might end up as her new mother, until Linda blustered in and disappointed every dream the younger Clara had ever dared to have.

Reminding herself that questions often required verbal answers, or at the very least a nod, Clara took a breath and did both. "I suppose you can, yeah," she said, nodding. She even shrugged a little, to make it seem as if she weren't the least bit terrified about what was going to come next.

"Do you have any idea who that man is?"

_ My husband. _"I do, yes."

Sarah Jane folded her arms again, assuming the stance like a pillar and not out of a means of defence. "And how long _ have _you known?" she pressed.

"Do you mean how long I've known him as a person, or how long have I known what he does for a living?" Clara asked, careful to make the two parts into distinctly separate matters so Sarah Jane might not make the mistake again.

Who Malcolm became when he went to work was not the Malcolm that Clara knew, much less the one she loved. _ Pity him, but don't praise him. Look after him, but don't love him – not like you love the real him buried beneath. _The scourge of press releases and newscasters everywhere was more like a host that assumed control of Malcolm's face and thoughts and voice and body for long, worrying stretches of time day to day, week in and week out. It was a parasitic abduction that Clara did not understand, did not in the least bit like, but could not rid him of. Not until he decided to quit. She could only be there to talk Malcolm out of the fit when he came back home again, just like he coaxed her from the jagged, tearing edge of her anxieties.

"I mean both," Sarah Jane said. "Hard to separate the two when one is so demanding and the other is so... well-suited for it."

Clara hid her disappointment. "A couple of months," she said, delivering the lie with no effort at all. It was really more like a couple of _ weeks _, but Sarah Jane didn't have to know that. No one under this roof did, as a matter of fact. Malcolm wasn't the only one capable of diverting truths as he saw fit.

Sarah Jane looked at Clara full on, her gaze containing all the exact precision of a scalpel. "Are you happy with him?" she asked.

"I fancy him quite a bit, yeah."

Sarah Jane shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant."

"So say that then," Clara countered, a gentle challenge – but a challenge all the same. "You know the point, now get to it."

If she had said this to her parents, Clara would have instantly regretted the words and wished nothing more than to shrivel up and die after speaking them. But Sarah Jane was different from her detached, phantom-like father, and far more kind than Linda could even delude herself into pretending. When Clara was younger and Sarah Jane was something of a surrogate parent for the girl, Sarah Jane never once chastised her for these moments of wilfulness, nor did she entertain outdated silly notions about lady-like temperaments and how to abide by them. Clara's temper was something Sarah Jane almost encouraged, provided it was set within an understandable limit: "_ Swear if you must, shout only when it feels right, and above all else _ listen _ to the other person's argument, even if it's only to find the flaws. _"

"Are you happy being with a man like Malcolm?" Sarah Jane asked. "And by that I mean beyond whatever it is that brings you together as a couple. I mean are you happy knowing what he _does_, how he... behaves?"

"You make him sound like a criminal."

"Not too far off the mark, the way I hear it sometimes."

"Rubbish," Clara said, only because she didn't want to swear just then. "He would never. And before you go and make another thin-lipped almost scowl at me, Sarah Jane, just – just shut up and let me finish."

Sarah Jane looked at the finger Clara brandished at her with raised eyebrows. She said nothing.

"Yes, I am happy. I'm the happiest I've been since my mum died," Clara said, surprised at how her voice and her hand could stay so steady. "I'm happier than when I was with John, in fact. I'm happy knowing that Malcolm cares about his party to make sure the people in it aren't always coming off as hopelessly inept, which... alright, maybe they are. But he _knows _they can be better. They have to be. And he's the one who pushes them for that. I'm happy knowing he's focused and dedicated enough to understand the responsibility on his and the rest of the government's backs, even though it can also be a thankless, worthless chore.

"I'm happy knowing that I've finally landed a relationship with a man who's pulling in a steady income _and_ has no illegal vices to speak of – and that's not exactly a common thing," she added, wetting her lips as she paused to take a quick breath. "Usually it's a choice between one or the other, you see. And I'm happy that I don't have to make the ever so _un_happy choice between a partner with a job, who just so happens to also have a crippling pill addiction, or a person who refuses to even touch a bottle of cooking sherry, but can't be arsed to get themselves off the couch long enough to Hoover up the crisp crumbs."

Sarah Jane shook her head again. "I don't ask this to hector you, Clara dear. You're not my daughter – and I certainly don't pretend to be your mother." She hesitated. Clara waited, knowing what was to come next. "But you're as good as a daughter to me – you always have been, you know that. And I want you to be careful... And cared for, naturally."

As touched as Clara was by these remarks, and she was, she absolutely was, she couldn't help but wonder one simple thing. "Have you given the John the same advice lately?" Clara asked, folding her arms across her chest. Her heart was beating wildly, making her fingers shake. She tightened them around her arms, hiding them inside of her fists so the quaking was less obvious. "Because if anyone could use a chat on how to look after others, it's him."

"Point taken, Clara," Sarah Jane said, sighing. "And yes, you know I have. Just like you know all the good _that _does."

"It goes in one ear, and then it's lost inside forever his head," Clara said as she laughed, a flat, bloodless sound. "It really is a miracle he got through medical school with a mind like his – you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, and as Malcolm pointed out, I am absolutely proud of John's accomplishments." Sarah Jane hesitated, her first show of near weakness the whole evening. "He's been talking about you lately," she said.

Clara said nothing back to this. She was too busy wondering how she could find a way to bring up that "_ anticipating John's absence" _ comment that had confused Malcolm back when he had the flu. It was true then and it was still true right here. There was nothing Clara wanted more than to _ not _discuss her ex.

"Anything nice?"

"Oh, the usual. Just reflective little comments here and there." Sarah Jane chewed on her lip and lowered her eyes, not quite meeting Clara's gaze anymore. "Tasha's gone, if you care to know."

Clara didn't. "Well that's..." she stopped herself from lying again. It wasn't sad. It wasn't good, either. Nor did Clara really care at all. "That's... something."

"I'll tell him you said hello when I see him next," Sarah Jane said, attempting a smile and a brighter mood to combat the shadow that had fallen between them.

"I'd rather you didn't," Clara said quickly, in the kind of voice that mimics the swift, sudden stabs of knives.

Sarah Jane nodded once, saying nothing. "Have you... heard from Amy and Rory lately?" she asked after a pause, trying once again to bring cheer to the room.

Despite her friend's best efforts, Clara only felt colder and dark, like a withered, shrunken star. "No. I haven't."

"Oh. They've – they've been asking about you as well," Sarah Jane said. She cleared her throat. "They miss you."

"Do they?" Clara wanted to believe this. She chose to believe it, not seeing the harm.

"Yes. Especially Amy."

Clara's heart cracked clean apart at that. "I've been meaning to call again," she said, but before she could get very far with the excuses, knowing they would get back to the Williams' somehow, Sarah Jane cut her off.

"So get to it," she said, politely waving away whatever penitent excuse Clara was about to craft. "They're your friends, Clara. You can't shut them out forever."

"I didn't shut them out," Clara argued, her temper flaring up again. "I'm not the one who put an entire bloody ocean and a new country and an '_I never want to speak to you again until the end of recorded fucking time' _veto on further conversations, am I?"

"I know what Amy said to you, Clara. Just like I know what she _meant_ to say – and so do you."

Clara closed her eyes, counted backwards from thirteen, and opened them again once she was sure she could trust herself to speak and breathe calmly.

"I still don't understand where she got off saying she was disappointed with _me_," Clara said quietly, listening to the distant sounds coming from the kitchen. Malcolm must have told a joke of some kind, because Gran – Margaret – was all but singing with laughter, a noise that was soon followed by the deep, awkward chuckle that could only have meant Clara's father was present as well. "I didn't do anything wrong – certainly nothing worth losing two of my best mates."

"They lost you too when they moved – you _and _John. And though I know he's not your favourite subject at the moment... You must remember that Amy has stood by John her entire life, no matter what he's done – or failed to do," Sarah Jane said, her voice hushed, her expression loaded with regret. "Did it never occur to you that she hoped you loved him enough to do the same?"

"Did it never occur to Amy that I think it's safer to love myself more than I love someone else?" Clara countered. _Safer and sadder._

Quite unexpectedly, Sarah Jane smiled at this, a wide beaming sort of grin that made Clara feel all knocked out of sorts. "I'm happy to hear you say that, Clara," she said, almost swelling with the kind of pride that made Clara immediately understand the other woman had taken her comment and applied it to something very different.

_ She thinks I'm predicting my future with Malcolm. That I'll end up choosing myself over him and what we have each and every time. _Clara didn't want to dislodge Sarah Jane of this notion, seeing as it made her so visibly excited – but Clara also wasn't happy knowing this thoroughly wrong idea was there, ripe for the taking and immediate destroying. If she had the nerve to do it.

_ Crush it. Get rid of it. _It was a lie that Clara didn't need on her conscience, and certainly one she didn't want to have applied to the one thing in her life that was starting to make life exciting again.

"Let what I say next close the topic from here until the next... two hundred years, okay?" she began, not waiting for Sarah Jane's confirmation before she carried on. "I chose myself over John because he had already made a choice long before I realised Tasha was even around – and I clearly wasn't part of that choice. I didn't stand by or fight for John because there just... there wasn't anything left to fight for," Clara heard herself say, staring down at the floor. It felt suddenly too far away, as if she were rising up and detaching from her own body to crawl on the ceiling overhead. "But that's not how things are now. Things _won't _be like that ever again. Not with Malcolm. I know that for a fact. I know it because I know what I have with Malcolm is – it's different. It matters."

Sarah Jane thought about this for a while. "And what about Amy and Rory?" she asked.

"Of course they matter. They've always mattered."

"So _tell them_," Sarah Jane said, reaching out to give Clara's tense, arched shoulders a comforting pat and squeeze. It got her to relax immediately, as did all of Sarah Jane's touches. "Rory would absolutely love to hear from you again. And Amy has already forgiven you a hundred times over, if you just gave her a chance to say it."

"Amy would never say it," Clara argued quietly, smiling as she thought of her dearest, loudest friend. "Not in so many words, I mean. She would need Rory to interpret for her."

"So?"

"So... I'll ring them tomorrow, when it's not the middle of the night for them. I'll try. That much I can promise."

As if sensing her step-daughter's slowly rebuilding happiness, Linda chose this moment to breeze into the room on her way into the kitchen. The phone was still clutched in her hand, and she had an ever more sour expression locked onto her face. It didn't help that Clara and Sarah Jane were laughing with each other in a far more friendly way than she and Clara had ever done.

"Still hiding in here?" Linda muttered, eyeing Sarah Jane.

"I wouldn't exactly call having a conversation hiding, Linda," Sarah Jane said, her tone frigid.

Linda left without saying another word, but she lingered long enough to shoot Sarah Jane's back a withering glare. Clara was glad she didn't catch it.

Unfolding her arms, Clara mashed one of her hands into a fist and ground it against the palm of the other, a nervous, fidgeting sort of mortal and pestle made of skin and bone. "We'd better get in there," she said, nodding towards the kitchen. "Wouldn't want to leave Malcolm to Linda for too long without a buffer zone."

Sarah Jane stared at Clara as they left the room, politely astonished. "He isn't _ really _as violent as people say, is he?"

"Not in a physical sense, no," Clara said. "But vocally? Yes. Absolutely."

Knowing full well and not at all caring that Sarah Jane might quietly begin to doubt her judgement, Clara felt herself slip into a broad, proud smile. The thought of Malcolm unleashing the full force of his furious vernacular on her step-mother was just about the happiest one she'd had since he'd kissed her in front of the hall closet a half hour ago.

Fortunately all Sarah Jane had to say on the subject was a muttered remark. Not even a rude one at that. "Well he _ is _Scottish," she said, half to herself.

Clara laughed for the first time all evening.

* * *

><p>Once they were all assembled into the kitchen – which was really more of an expanded dining room <em> plus <em>a kitchen, the doorway having been knocked down to make access between both rooms easier to manage – Clara took her usual seat at the table next to her grandmother. She grabbed at Malcolm's arm as she passed, dragging him into the empty seat to her left. He obliged this rough handling without comment, but his eyebrows did swoop forwards and down into a trademark scowl.

"Everything all right?" he asked.

Clara nodded, not meeting his eyes. She didn't let go of his arm either. "Perfect. Really. Everything's fine."

Malcolm knew she was lying, just as he knew this wasn't exactly the time to drag the truth from her. Once Clara had let go of his arm, letting him gain the feeling back in his hand, she compromised by holding that very same hand under the table once he let it drop to his lap. Malcolm's glanced down at her hand with a curious frown, puzzled by her raw, clutching grasp that he tried his best to soothe with gentle strokes of his thumb up and down her small hand.

"I fetched that paper your Gran was after," he said under his breath, knowing any talk at all would be best to distract Clara.

"Did you? I'm glad. Thank you."

"It didn't take more than a few seconds – and I found a few little snapshots of a younger you while I was down there," he said, his eyebrows lifting up on his forehead as he gave Clara a long, thoughtful look.

"Which I hope you left on the counter in the kitchen and did not stash into your pocket for future blackmailing purposes."

"You could hope that if you'd like," Malcolm said. "I won't come right out and stop you – not in so many words to derail your little faith brigade, of course, but –"

Clara leaned into him, shaking her head. "Shut up," she mumbled, hiding her laugh.

And so Malcolm did – but only for a few seconds. Wetting his lips with a quick sip of water, he then launched into a rather odd, but somehow strangely exciting recitation of how he had returned the dusty age-worn prize to Margaret for safekeeping. But the way Malcolm told it, the simple story somehow took on the dimensions of an epic, Arthurian fetch question, something Edmund Spenser might have written and later redacted from _ The Faerie Queen. _

Even Sarah Jane couldn't help but listen in to Malcolm's tale, smiling slightly with her head tilted to the side as she considered this unexpected display. Clara almost wanted to gloat. _ See? Not every story he tells has to be an ugly one, s _he thought to say, but she knew better than to let the words out of her head.

As Dave carried out the dishes of food to load up the table, talking down every attempt Sarah Jane, Clara, and even Malcolm made to stand up and offer help, Margaret flattened the page Malcolm had retrieved for her out on the table with a tremulous, bird-bone thin hand. She ignored Linda's soft tut and muttered, "_ Unsanitary _," as she looked over the page, reading from top to bottom in a long, lingering sweep of her watery eyes.

"Anything nice, Gran?" Clara asked, leaning in to take a peak at the page.

Margaret twitched the sheet away at the last second, smiling sidelong at Clara. "Of course it is," she said. "I'm hoping to make it into a gift, once I'm sure this is the right draft. It's hard to keep track of them, you know. Not every page I find turns out to be quite how I remembered."

Judging by the distant look in her eyes and the way her smile had turned itself into something sad, Clara could guess that whatever was written on the page was incredibly personal. Maybe this wasn't a recipe at all, but a loose sheaf that had come undone from a diary of some kind, one she had brought with her when she first moved in after Ellie's death, and lost in the inevitable shuffle and sway of moving back out again. Clara gave her grandmother's arm a warm squeeze before she turned her attention to the rest of the table.

Malcolm, Clara, and Margaret sat with their backs to the wall on the left-hand side of the table, in that order. On the right side of the table, seated below a shelf where greeting cards, empty picture frames, and unlit candles stood sentinel, Sarah Jane had taken a seat across from Clara. Unfortunately this put her directly next to Linda, who sat on her right. They got along well enough for two women who would much rather spit acid than share a polite conversation with each other, and were chatting quietly as dinner was slowly served, and sampled by those present at the table. But once Dave joined the table for good, Sarah Jane and Linda barely had a word left to spare for each other. They'd exhausted their entire supply for an amicable conversation and resorted instead to the truce of strained silence.

Dinner commenced in this tense fashion, polite and subdued. The silence was broken occasionally only by the clink of forks and knives on plates, the soft thud of glasses being lowered down to rest on clothed wood, and the small bits of chatter that rose up between each bite. But like all terms of peace in the Oswald house, it wasn't meant to last.

"How did you two meet?" Dave asked, his smile a forgettable twist of lips that looked more like a nervous twitch than an actual expression.

"At a Tesco, actually," Malcolm said.

Even Linda couldn't find a way to mock that. "Is that so?" she asked.

Only Clara noticed the way Malcolm grew just the slightest bit more tense when addressing her step-mum. "Yes. Clara was buying – what was it, milk?" Malcolm asked, turning to Clara for confirmation. She nodded. "For a soufflé, I think. It was for some food – pudding was involved, I remember that much. Well, the milk didn't make it out of the store with her – didn't make it out of the case, honestly. We both turned, got into bit of an accident, nothing serious, but once it was all cleaned up, we left as new acquaintances. I expect even she would agree that's far better."

"Don't speak for me, sweetheart," Clara said around her fork, gently nudging Malcolm's arm. "You still haven't had one of my soufflés. There's a chocolate one I've been keeping a closely guarded secret for some time now."

Malcolm stared at her, taking in the flash of her dark eyes and the smirk on her lips. Judging by the look he was giving her, a sort of smouldering, heavy stare, Clara thought Malcolm found her far more tantalising than she had a right to be in that moment. Or was it just the fact that they always found it hard to keep their flirting beyond fire-kindling levels, having gotten so used to being among their own company that it didn't take long for such playful banter to turn into kisses, into touches, into far more crude bodily explorations?

"Are you threatening me with puddings?"

"Just might be, yeah."

"Look at you two," Linda crooned, her eyes narrowing into beady pointed slits. She spoke the way a butcher might soothe the calf whose throat it's about to slit. "It's almost nauseating, how sweet you are. Tell me, Malcolm – have you brought Clara around to see your family? Or are they not... aware?"

Malcolm made a slow gentle show of cutting his portion of roast beef (medium rare, still bloody and pink like a slab of tender skin) into small, edible squares before he considered answering. Every bend of his arms and steady sawing glide of his hands back and forth over the soft flesh was as deliberate an act of disgust as if he'd thrown the most crude, brutal epithets at Linda. Only Clara was aware of this.

The lapse between Linda's question and Malcolm's reply made the whole table squirm – except for Margaret, who was merely smiling in a tiny, wicked way as she studied Malcolm side-long. Clara was glad to see she wasn't the only one proud of Malcolm in that moment.

"My mother, my sister, and my niece have all met Clara," he said, chewing as slowly as he could, not to savour the taste but to make an exaggerated show of how little he cared to join Linda in her attempt at a conversation. By drawing her attention to his face and to the motions that played across there, she had no choice but to notice the way he scowled whenever their eyes met, or the way that his gaze turned cold and pale as it pinned itself to her face.

"And your father?" Linda pressed.

"Doesn't meet much of anyone these days, apart from his Maker," Malcolm said. "Seeing as he's dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Linda's response was too automatic to be believed.

Malcolm wouldn't let her get away with it. "Are you?" he asked, turning his head slowly to the side as he studied her, not quite glaring but damned near close to it.

Malcolm had known just what Linda's earlier pause had meant._ Aware _ wasn't the word she wanted to say, not at first. " _ Are your parents even _alive?" would be far more accurate, though Linda often failed to carry out the courage of her own viciousness. Perhaps it helped sustained her cycle of waspish bitterness. Clara was never quite sure.

As Malcolm offered no more on the subject, silence rose up again to swallow the table. Sarah Jane caught Clara's eye and the plea hidden within her dark brown gaze. That was all she needed to come to the younger woman's aid.

"So Clara, what was it you were telling me about Malcolm's work? You didn't quite finish that thought."

Not knowing about the full length of the conversation that had taken place between the two women, Malcolm was not exactly pleased by this line of questioning. He looked down at Clara without moving his head, shifting his eyes in a sideways strain that showed more whites than colour. Clara could feel his tense, barbed curiosity creeping across the entire room, like a fog that invades and pervades without any of the targets being the wiser until they were trapped in the snares of his temper.

_ Trust me, _ she wanted to say to him. _ Trust me and trust my faith in Sarah Jane, if you can't trust the woman directly. Trust me the way you ask me without words every day to trust you, trust you each time I watch you walk out the door and head off to Number Ten. Trust me to pull myself back from this. Trust that I can recover and repair, the way I trust you to come back as the man I know, even if you leave as someone else. _

Clara took a long, fortifying sip of her wine, wished it were something less sweet and far more tart, to match her sour mouth hardened with a similar tongue. She then launched into the story she had pored over carefully for days, glad to give it a chance to shine – however weak a story it was.

"Well – like I was saying, Malcolm... travels quite a lot. He's been all over, I think, judging by the stories he tells me. Sometimes I can go a few days without seeing him – though he is careful to keep in touch," Clara began, touching on a few basic truths.

It wasn't a total lie, not really. Malcolm _ did _travel quite a bit – in the sense that he was always on the move swooping down among departments, hounding cabinet ministers who got just a bit too far off the line. And as he was often required to accompany the Prime Minister on ruthlessly vital foreign press tours, Clara felt that making this unhappy facet of Malcolm's job the key focus of her invention was a bit genius on her part. Clever, almost crafty.

"What does he do?" Dave asked, shooting Malcolm an apologetic look as he did so. "Or – sorry. Er, what do _you_ do, Malcolm? Don't want to talk as if you aren't sitting right there."

"I write mostly," Malcolm said, picking up on the hair-thin thread of Clara's plot and sticking to it: just the basics, simple and trite. Clara could have kissed him then and there if she didn't think half the table would reject with a horrified recoil.

And then he continued. "But there's also a fair bit of shouting and thinly-veiled threats to keep the lower grunts in line, you know. Typical '_ Verbal beatings shall continue until moral very much improves' _pep-talks. The usual office-encased drudgery. Minds tend to drift and doze off a bit when it's stuffed full of future planning, or how best to pitch social or cultural affairs so the public won't immediately smother it on sight. I'm something of a sheep herder in that regard – a communications director, if you'd like."

Sarah Jane lowered her fork. Clara almost dropped her wine glass.

A little pause followed this remark. Linda peered curiously around the rim of her glass at Malcolm, whereas Sarah Jane, having recovered her appetite as quickly as she lost it, suddenly become far more interested in her plate than the man speaking. Margaret, Clara was surprised to see, looked like she was smothering a laugh, which she did with the added help of the cloth napkin previously stretched in a starched white coat across her lap.

"That sounds... involved," Dave said, looking as astonished as he could manage without resorting to an undignified gawk.

"He's the editor for a travel magazine," Clara cut in, relieving Malcolm of his turn to speak. _God, what was the name? I had a name. Something that Nicholson bloke said, Malcolm was laughing himself into a fit about it – _"Sky Blue Thinkers, was it?" she said, turning to Malcolm with a desperate look hidden by the forward swing of her dark hair. It fell like a curtain in front of her profile, masking her eyes and the hard edged stare.

To his credit, Malcolm somehow managed to reduce his laughter to a small, charming smile. "Not my choice in a title," he admitted, almost looking bashful about it. _ How does he do it? _Clara wondered, in a daze.

Malcolm folded his long hands and thin, pale fingers together into a small arch, planted his elbows on the table, and glanced across at Dave for a quiet moment of consideration. "That was an old motto from a previous editor – he still hangs around from time to time, you know, just to pop his head round the door and try to get a word in. Wants to appear relevant. He's a dedicated man, and I think he's probably kind – but not exactly the one you would trust to deliver what's necessary to the those who need it."

It became cruelly clear to Clara, in the same way a bit of broken glass can lodge itself under a person's skin and bite down to the vein in a fast snap that draws blood, that Malcolm was criticising someone else with this statement. She didn't need to guess who it was: he hadn't looked away from her father for the entire length of that statement.

And Dave, sweet Dave Oswald, absent-hearted and only just barely able to cobble together a well-meaning thought, didn't realise a thing.

"It seems you're quite dedicated to your readership and upholding a standard," he said, sitting straight in his chair, the motions of his knife and fork as rigid as a wind-up toy's reach and depth. Even his voice sounded like a clockwork. Surely Clara wasn't alone in hearing the little calliope chimes and ticks. "Consider me impressed, Malcolm. I hope they're just as loyal to you."

"I wouldn't call our public loyal, exactly," Malcolm said, his words, face, and tone all grave-like grim. "Just passionately impossible to persuade once they've been led to believe a point. So you work to keep them _away _from that point of no return – for their best interest."

"And how long have you been working at this magazine?" Linda asked.

"Feels like all my life. Really, it does. It can leave a bit of a wear and tear on the soul, you know – all that legwork, all that fact shuffling, trying to find a happier medium. But no one wants the silver lining. They want the blood, the bones, the pulp. They want what's ugly. They want to be outraged at what's ugly, as if they didn't call for it in the first place. They dig as deep as they can until they find something rotten, some cancer, some epidemic or another, and then write or call or show up shouting about who to hold accountable for it."

Malcolm paused. His hands were clenched like bones, the skin pale, strained, the ice blue veins beneath pushing up flat as if every drop of blood in every vein ached to burst. There was a little lightning fork of a vein in his temple ticking, tocking, beating along in time with every restless throb of his heart – and then Malcolm glanced at Clara, and the ease in the air around him was palpable.

"Clara helps, you know. She helps a lot. Having her around – it's like a new take on breathing. Much happier with her nearby."

The noose around Clara's heart relented long enough to let her pulse beat normally again. Malcolm's hand found hers under the table, seeking her warmth this time, eager for her comfort. It was his. It was always his.

Even Linda would find it hard to argue against _that_.

* * *

><p>As Malcolm and Clara were getting ready to leave, having spent the rest of dinner in tense observation of the volleying conversation lobbed over Linda's head and held between Dave and Sarah Jane, a charming distraction sidelined them from marching out the front door into the waiting cab. Margaret put her hand on Clara's wrist and tapped her fingers there gently, smiling once she met her granddaughter's eyes.<p>

"Leaving already?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," Clara said at once. And she meant it – she truly was. "I'll come visit an hour earlier next Sunday – and stay an hour later, if you'd like."

"Yes, that would be lovely," Margaret said, her smile never fading, not once. "And bring Malcolm around, I think I have some clippings from – what was the paper he mentioned during pudding? The one he worked for twenty years ago – the Glasgow Herald?"

Clara nodded, her throat growing tight. Malcolm was in the hall fetching their coats, not likely to overhear.

"I always loved his articles. He didn't write much about travelling back then, as I recall."

"I'll – I'll let him know, Gran. He might be busy, but it won't hurt to ask."

Nodding vaguely at this, Margaret took one last look at the dusty sheet of paper in her hand. It was folded over into four squares, all severe symmetrical lines. Her hand was steady as she passed the paper to Clara.

"What's this?"

"You'll need this, I think – that is if Malcolm behaves enough to earn an Oswald speciality soufflé. Your mother and I knocked heads over that recipe for an age before you were born. She wanted to get it just right."

Clara's throat closed like a tomb, all air sealing down, locked tightly in. "Did she?"

"She did, yes," Margaret said. "And she left a little note for you at the bottom."

Clara kissed her grandmother's cheek, wrapped her in the tightest hug she could dare risk giving the older woman, and forced a smile on her face until they were out the door. It was only then that she let the tears prick her eyes. She wiped them away quickly, not wanting to blot the page.

"What's that?" Malcolm asked as he opened the door to the cab and let Clara get in first.

She waited until he was seated beside her. "A letter – well, sort of a letter. It's that paper you helped my Gran get, remember?"

"I remember. It was somehow the highlight of this entire evening – that and watching Sarah Jane wish a quiet, brutal death on Linda." Malcolm paused, peering down at the paper as Clara unfolded it. "What does it say?"

Clara didn't trust herself to say it. The tears in her eyes had somehow flooded into her mouth, filling her with longing and regret, and the bitterness that both thoughts and memories bring. She handed the paper to Malcolm to let him read in the passing lights of cars and street-lamps. The starlight was far too dim to illuminate anything, and the moon was hiding that night, new and black and dim.

Malcolm read the bottom of the page quietly to himself. He reached out with his arm to pull Clara in close, his lips resting against the side of her forehead, where a slow and steady pain was starting to build. How could he know? Did he know? He must have – Malcolm always knew, somehow, the right thing to do to target exactly what ailed Clara at a given moment. She was either that transparent or he was that perceptive. She wasn't sure of which.

Under his breath, speaking beneath the passing hushing rush of cars turning through puddles and splashing rainwater around the roads, Malcolm said Ellie Oswald's words in an undertone, all reverence and love. "'_Remember, Clara – it's not what you make that matters, but the effort you put into every task. Keep trying. Fail and fall and try again – it's the process that's half the fun. That's all there is to it. I love you always.'_"

"Did your mother often draw life lessons from cooking recipes?" Malcolm asked.

Clara nodded, smiling through the small streak of tears that slid down her cheeks. She started to brush them away before Malcolm could do it, wanting to get rid of the grief herself. "She found lessons in just about anything," Clara said. "Life's not about living, it's about learning. Active, not passive."

"... She sounds lovely."

"She was. You would have liked her." Clara paused. She didn't want to say it, didn't have to say it. _I miss her. I miss her so much. But whatever void she's left behind is starting to, bit by bit, be patched over thanks to you._

Together, moving as one, with a single thought on both their minds, Clara and Malcolm reached up and down respectively. With their left hands and folded their fingers through the other's, giving back as much warmth as they got in return, Clara turned her head, lifted her chin, and met Malcolm's lips in a soft, loving kiss.


End file.
